Anyone with an allotment?

I'm having a potato harvest fest tomorrow. Have taken the day off work and have a mate coming over. Youngest helping with the harvest before school. Making a full day of it. Seems to be a small amount of blight creeping in so they must come up. Potato breakfast skillet, dauphinous, the larger ones cooked in foil on the BBQ, a potato salad and a frittata. I'm nervous as I have no idea what's actually growing under there. First earlies put in on 23 April. Potato anxiety at an all time high.

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My local allotment society have an open day today. It did sound like they had 25 plots up for grabs but they sent an email out ahead to say actually it's 25 spots on a new waiting list because the old list is out of date. I'm officially number 8 on the list, hooray. Now just need to wait for people to move away or die.

We turned up as part of a batch of 11 (Folkestone Rd, Newham) the other week and there were 6 no-shows. Don’t know if they will stay on the waiting list, but even if so they are going to get the worst (½, no full-size any more) plots; stay tuned & be prompt when summoned. Still haven’t had a sniff of the keys mind

If you’re more prepared to do some graft than others you might get up the list. There was supposedly a huge list when I got my dad an allotment but the plot he took over was a bit of a mess however my dad was happy to do the graft and he got it.

I love digging up and clearing crap so that's a positive!

My garden resembles a derelict plot, I don't know how you lot manage to stay on top of things!

Lots of cardboard

Yep, I get a veg box delivered weekly and we hoard the boxes to put down as weed suppressants under our gravel where the suppressant membrane has broken down.

I don't know how you lot manage to stay on top of things!

I don't, really. And my house is a mess :)

Water trough at the bottom of our plot has made watering the plot so much easier. In the heat yesterday I was able to do the whole plot in half an hour while the kids drenched each other.
Squash got 20-30l each whereas walking to the previous closest trough I'd probably have given them 10l each at most. Got a few fruit which are looking close to viable. Prayng the heat keeps the slugs away for a while so they can toughen up.

Got some seed potatoes that didn't make it into the ground with the rest earlier in the year. Too late to get a crop in?

Are they earlies or maincrop? Earlies will be ready in 10-12 weeks, so early september, no problem. Maincrop could work but you'd need to watch out for frost. If you can stick them in a tub and move them into a greenhouse/polytunnel when it gets cold you could easily get a crop. You would need to give them a fair bit of water at the moment.

They look in good fettle. Keep us updated.

You would need to give them a fair bit of water at the moment.

This is where everything has failed for me this year. Only the weeds seem to like the dry weather and I haven't watered at all :(

Think the potatoes are maincrop so might just stick them in, try to water more than I have been (shouldn't be too hard) and hope for the best!

So many of the new starters on our site haven’t turned up yet or given up after 1 visit it seems. Our new neighbour on the other hand has absolutely smashed it and she appears to be in her 70s.

Lots of people were refusing plots/demanding the council clear/plough for them on the last open day so I imagine there’s a very high turnover. Sadly on our site it appears to take 18months - 2yrs to eject someone if they’re not into it so vacants are usually in much worse shape than they could be.

First couple of squashes? Courgettes? This morning. Really can’t remember what went in where…

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If you give them a soak before you cover them and a bit more at the start they should be fine. I've hardly watered the ones I put in the ground this year. But I got them in a bit earlier when there was more rain about.

Look a bit summer squash-y. Nice stuff!

I dropped some into pots on Thursday last week and they were up 2 inches above the soil last night. Everything will come on quick this week!

All my extra gap filling dwarf bean seedlings got scorched to death yesterday through the window. /csb.

My sympathies, I nearly lost a load of lettuce and beetroot seedlings I was planning to plant out in the next couple of weeks. Most recovered after a good watering. These were the ones I planted to replace the ones I scorched a month or so back.

I rode to the plot during a Teams call to water my lettuce seedlings earlier, needs must.

My stuck squash, and other things growing slowly. 3 of appx 30 sweetcorn germinated.

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Looks like blight...

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I would agree unfortunately. Cut those tops off, burn them and hope it hasn’t spread?