Anyone with an allotment?

I’m feeling throughly impatient for things to warm up at the moment here in London. In my head we’re due a decent warm spring this year.
At least want it to be warm enough again to germinate seeds in the potting shed as we’re at capacity at home already.

Sown 8 varieties of tomato, aubergine, sweet peppers and chillies in my heated propagators today. Also some white sprouting broccoli and Brussels in my cold frame. Should really make a plan of where it's all going!

Are you sticking the aubergine in a greenhouse? I tried one year outside but they seemed a bit fickle to the weather…

Yeah we have a shared greenhouse at the allotment

👍

Good work on the seed sowing, it’s only just March and the year’s got away from me. Grumpy old man vibes…

My sweet peppers are well on their way :)
Some have already been moved to the potting shed, it might stunt them a little with it being cold still but they’ve been ok so far.

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Great stuff. I can't use those sticky thingies after coming home one day to find them stuck all over my stupid cat

Have you had good results in the past starting everything so early? So many esteemed gardeners seem to advise that seeds sown later will catch up and overtake very early sowings, which struggle from lack of heat and light. But maybe you are doing everything with artificial heat as well as light, and it's all destined for a greenhouse? Your seedlings look great so you're obviously doing something right!

So they’re in our flat, which is a new build so happily sits at 23°c all winter with no heating which probably helps a bit.
This is the first year we’ve started so early and honestly did it out of boredom as much as anything else, I don’t expect any real advantage but I’ve enjoyed looking after them.
I’ve had a couple of fungus gnat outbreaks but nothing major.

The chillis I started back at the start of Jan are getting their first htfu experience today. It’s sunny but windy. Thought they’d appreciate it.

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Everything more or less surviving in the shed.

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Has anyone got a good source for off the roll good quality polythene? Need 2x 4x7m pieces.
Prices seem to vary wildly.

Impressive!

Spent today helping our allotment committee tidy up an old unused plot which involved 4 solid hours of lopping up a tree. Saved what we could for plant supports and I nicked some to go next to my pond. Also got told they might be moving the person next to me to another plot so I could potentially expand.

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Got a leeky sink ffs

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Moving all the perennial herbs into one bed.

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All the allotment cats stopped by today, also Geoff the fox popped up but wasn’t quick enough to get a pic.

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We have Big Ginge, he likes to just sit and pretend you don't exist

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Planning to sow over the next couple of weeks:
Coriander
Peas
Spring onion
Cucumber
Marjoram
Okra
Chinese lantern
Sprouts
Cauliflower

Anything obvious I’ve missed?

One of the seemingly identical twins at ours, looking disgruntled after it met our dogs the other week.

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Up the plot for the first time in ages today. Didn’t look too shabby. Built a frame for some beans and took a stalk of sprouts.

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Spouts were as bad as they look.

Top beam support building. Are those re usable cable ties. I got a big packet as an Xmas present..... I wonder where they had been all my life :)

Yup, the black ones I used last year for my beans and the white ones I repurposed from the new canes which I’d bought. In my (fairly limited) experience, most cable ties are reusable if you’re prepared to try.

There is building work on one of the boundaries of our allotment site, our plot is only 1 plot inwards from that boundary. We get this email tonight

People unconnected to the building site or the allotments have been seen accessing our allotment site through the building site in recent days. Naturally, we are very concerned about site security at the moment because of this.

I don't usually even lock my shed. Best go take a look tomorrow see if owt has gone...