Anyone with an allotment?

I’m in Bedfordshire, so a little way out. The variety is Madeleine de Deux Saisons. Apparently it can produce two crops a year if it’s a good year but I’m very much a fig novice and that’s just what I read.

Anyone had little caterpillars infest their sweetcorn before? Sounds like it’s too late in the game for spraying anything.
Read a bit and sounds like it’s something to do with overwatering them or too much rain if they’re started a bit early?

We’ve got the key! A little clearance required

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Congrats! Happy growing.

Will you be splashing out on a cordless strimmer ? Most plots are shocking , mine was similar but the site week killed it for me and loaned me a petrol strimmer for an afternoon

Seamus, I was meaning to ask, what did you end up putting in after your potatoes? I have some dwarf french beans I was hoping might get me a crop by early October.

Hadn’t thought about a strimmer; the rules are no power tools & it’s ~20 min cycle ride with no shed yet… hoping that chiselling away with a digging hoe will eventually work. Three months until the first inspection.

I'm trying spinach beet, radishes and beetroot

the beetroot are already up above ground! - I'm in NW and we've had rain in last few weeks combined with gorgeous sunshine which has helped. Forecast says we're getting rain Mon to Wed next week so perfect

id imagine they'd have to cut you a lot of slack, giving you a plot in that state and banning power tools? a really rough plot behind me that's been overgrown for about 5 yrs was recently re-let and the new guy strimmed it to ground level in a day

I'd ask what site expect - the plot they've given you is rough as hell and its not a great time to be growing stuff. I'd plan for next yr and write the rest of this yr off ?

Yeah, no crop plans this year—structural stuff only. First order of business, I’ll try to catch one of the committee members and find out who has a) brush cutter we can borrow b) post banger-inner same c) toilet keys for copying. Second, get to know neighbours and see who will trust me enough to lend shed space & key for tools until we can sort our own shed out

Edit: tenancy agreement says:

The tenant shall only use hand tools or hand operated mechanical equipment in [cultivation]

So I suppose that means no brush-cutter. Gnnn

I'd plan for next yr and write the rest of this yr off ?

This is what I'm doing, no water on site and no rain for so long means everything has struggled so just thinking about getting ready for the stuff that can go in over winter and prepare some beds with cardboard and mulch to stop the weeds taking over.

No water on site? At all!

Nope. People collect rainwater from shed roofs but we don't have a shed (yet) and only one half full butt when we took on the plot. Recently I've been filling watering cans at home and taking them along in the wheelbarrow but it's not enough to water the few things that have gone in recently, let alone keep a whole plot going.

That's tough rules. Barbaric even. Can you dig irrigation ditches to nearby water courses?

There’s no water supply That’s crazy.

How much effort do you want to put in for water?

You could get a bore hole drilled. Or dig a well, put a big pipe vertically and then back fill.

Bivvy'd with a buddy at the plot last night after chippy tea & pint & plot beers.

2hrs full pressure water of all plants early doors after carnival float soundcheck woke me up at 6.45am. Coffee and chorley cake breakfast, picked beans then slow walk home. Nice.

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I've got to get down to my plot crack of dawn tomorrow to water.
Been watering (and very little else ) every early evening the past week or so just to keep things alive but doing this in this heat* for a couple of hours is ridiculous 🥵

*SE London

Had a google for 'heat exhaustion' - hmmm not good 🤢

I took the kids up the plot before it got too hot today. Tbf we were there until 12.45 so it was pretty toasty by the time we left. Annoyingly it looks like I might have lost a decent-sized squash due to not watering enough in the heat. Watered everything, sowed a load of autumn carrots, perpetual spinach, dwarf beans (not sure if they’ll crop in time) and radishes, potted up 4 tomato plants I grew from pinched out shoots, stuck in a little cucumber plant we bought from a church plant sale ages ago. Then picked some blackberries from the overgrown back of the plot. Some of them are huuuge. One of the blue hubbard squashes is getting pretty large, size 9 shoe for scale.

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Those blackberries look fab, when it stops being 32 degrees here I might take a wander and see if any of the bushes scattered around the garden and nearby lane have any ready

Wow, no water on site is pretty brutal. Not sure I’d have anything growing on our plot of that were the case for us. I do have a big 1200 litre butt I picked up for free but no shed to fill it with yet. That’ll sort you out for a while but even then in this drought even a full one wouldn’t last you long.

Finally emptied the last of the 'le Ratte' potato tubs.
Predictably no real surprises ...

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I think a bore hole is squarely in the "too much effort" category and not sure what the committee would say.

Plot twist this evening though as my partner has just had an email offering us a 1000l water container for £25 delivered. The committee have had some offered to them and they obviously took pity on us newcomers with no water collection system (and a barren plot) so offered us dibs! Tempted to ask for two.

I would. You can go through 100 per watering session easily

I’d be considering two for sure. I must have stuck a couple of hundred litres over the plot today.

I think three years might be ambitious.

Edit: is there a London equivalent of https://www.rentagoat.com?

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