Anyone with an allotment?

Our site often gets robbed on May bank holiday weekend when there’s trays of young plants about to go in the ground.
Several hundred tomato plants went in one night last year.

Check your allotment rules, as most prohibit growing non-food plants beyond flowers for cutting for the table. Growing a sycamore would be a fairly significant transgression.

Woman in the plot next to mine pisses and moans about the light to her plot (was texting me about fruit trees that were still in their pots, trying to tell me where to put them), and then moved the path running in front of her plot, planted a hazel arch at the front of her plot which shades the neighbour opposite because she's totally failed to prune or shape it, and planted a shit ton of Jerusalem Artichokes that she never digs up - and a fucking oak tree (which someone - not me - appears to have had a go at over the summer) - right next to my sunniest bed.

I generally take the position that what someone does on their plot is their business, but it rankles from someone who is forever giving grief about what other people are doing on theirs.

I grow them uncovered and pretty much left alone… get the odd nibble from slugs bit other than that seem ok.

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I agree, I’m mostly annoyed as they fall into the bracket of ‘tenants that do absolutely fuck all but never get pulled up for it’, on our site it does feel like the more you do the more the officer is on your case whereas the slackers seem to get a free pass.
I will go through and highlight the various ways in which the sycamore contravenes the rules. The devil is in the detail so I may as well throw the rules back at them.

In other news, I like the idea of some low hoop tunnels for winter this year.
Are people on here using blue water pipe? If so how are you anchoring it and where did you acquire it from?
We don’t have raised beds so will have to be driven into the ground to some extent.
All advice welcome, want to plant out some kale seedlings in the next couple of week. Have a bunch of ultra fine mesh still so may as well use it.

Bluewater pipe is generally available from agricultural suppliers. it's good stuff. I've tried other kinds of plastic pipe and they were useless. A good way to secure it is rebar stakes driven in and to slide the pipe over the stakes. Otherwise I guess a hinged timber frame that the pipe is screwed into so that you can get easy access for watering etc.

I’m part of the blue pipe massive, 25M of 25mm from Screwfix iirc. I thought it would need staking but to be honest it’s rigid enough to just push 12-18” into the soil. Cut into 6’ lengths.
Also thought I’d be clever and use 25mm pipe wall fixings to hold the netting but it was too faffy to take off to weed, just weighed it down with general allotment crap (broken bricks, rotten planks etc)

Perfect, thanks y’all. Do you put anything along the middle to act as a ridge or does it support itself well enough? Most of my beds are about 1.5-2m wide.

I use a blue pipe arch approx. every metre, no ridge support required, although I do find the end hoops can bend inwards when you weigh down the ends of the netting. I have 20mm, 25mm, and 32mm pipe. The 20mm is too flexible, the 25mm is OK, the 32mm is great and I use that for the end hoops to stop them bending inwards. Usually just push the ends in the ground but I'm doing no dig now so that is harder; might try looking out for some rebar. I tried bamboo canes but they just snap off eventually leaving a bit stuck in the end of the pipe.

There are often short lengths of 'blue pipe' on marketplace or gumtree left over from building works.

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I usually have at least a third of the plot brassicas, plus some leeks and parsnips. Winter veg is my favourite to grow as you can harvest when you want to eat it, rather than having a summer glut.

This year trying to do more second cropping so have savoy cabbage, turnips, and green mustard in where various things have finished, plus winter spinnach, spring onions, spring cabbage, claytonia, and endives in trays nearly ready to be planted out. Plot should be about 3/4 full during the winter if all goes to plan this year.

Also a blue pipe user here. You can zip tie a bamboo cane along the Ridge if needed but mostly not needed.

For fruit bush cage structure I attached some to pallet frame with that flexible metal hole punched "tape" which is bought as a reel then cut to size with metal snips. Hard to find a pic so will take a fresh one and share next time I'm at the plot.

Nice one everyone, will look into it. I don’t utilise the tool library/fb groups etc tied to our site so it could well be we’ve got a source.
On that note if anyone’s got a rotovator in E17ish I can borrow then give us a shout

I would just like to say my sweetcorn this year were horrifically tough and tasteless. Must water harder.

What variety did you do? Another chance for me to plug the “special Swiss” sweetcorn from the real seed company https://www.realseeds.co.uk/sweetcorn.html which has never failed me.

I had the first cobs over the weekend and they were excellent. I’ve barely watered them this year (been so wet I haven’t needed to) but did a bit to get them established.

I went for some F1 hybrid last year and got zero cobs off 40 plants.

Just had a look and they were ‘Ambrosia’ which is an odd bi-colour cob. It was like eating uncooked popcorn.
Thank you for the recommendation but sadly not in my choices for next year from our catalogue…

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It’s also known as “Damaun” (but I bought some damaun from Dobies and it was nowhere near as vigorous as the real seed stuff. Wait, can you only grow stuff from the catalogue?

Ha, no but I bugged the head of the AA to drop a catalogue over so feel obliged to make a decent order! :)
Other than Maris Piper, what’s a good roaster? Going to order some pink fir apples too

I’m a fan of Sarpo Mira, blight resistant and very tasty. (Have possibly mentioned this before once or twice)

Has anyone ever looked into solar powered grow lights to supplement their greenhouse/potting shed?
Ours is a little set back on the plot and some of our seedlings have been a bit stretched and leggy.
The cheap option is 5v purple/blue led tape a bit like the grow lights weed farmers use but the kits don’t appear to have switch/timer/battery so I guess it’s just ‘on’ during the day. I wouldn’t expect much from it but as a bit of a top up for gloomy days I’m wondering if it’s worth a punt?

Thinking I could section off one side of the lower shelf with a bit more insulation and add the lighting to the underside of the top shelf to make a little grow tent that would hopefully be bright/warm enough to keep a few more delicate things happy over winter.

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You should also get a sign saying “valuables left in shed overnight”

I jest but with a brown like you shed will be a prime target for thieves

You could probably solar power a microcomputer to trigger a relay switch via a light sensor so the led's only go on at night? Would be an interesting project for sure.

The shed is unlocked and there’s nothing in there apart from a few seedlings and a watering can. They’re welcome to have a nose around in there.
I take your point though, was mostly thinking aloud and wondering if anyone had done it.

That sounds way above my pay grade but interesting!

Well this is a more pressing matter now anyway 😅 strimming 8ft away and winged a pebble.
Easy fix, just annoying.

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If only you knew someone who worked with glass!

i revel in my misanthropy - there are nice people but theyre hugely outnumbered by rude, entitled scumbags