Any allotment or back garden fruit/veg growers here?

[Foresthillnick]

I’ve got a plot in Brockley - Barriedale Allotments and I grow lots of stuff in the garden too. Just wondered if there are any other green fingered types on here?

I’m having a good year although there have been several complete failures. Toms are now coming good and I am spending some of today making some chili sauce with this lot

Sweetcorn is late but had the first last night - sooo sweet, chilies are good, cabbages shredded by slugs, aubergines - what aubergines…

Haven’t bought any veg for several months though so something is going right…

[Daffodil]

Yes I have an allotment on the Hurstbourne Road site. The slugs did a lot of damage earlier in the year so the potato crop not as good as it could have been and they also got some of the bean plants.
We have lots of courgettes though! The sweet corn is just ready for picking now.
The raspberries are good too although not many make it home once the children have finished!
I only grow tomatoes at home as they get blight on the allotment. So I just have a few tomato plants in pots in the garden.
I just wish I could spend more time there!

[StDavid]

I’m on a list but desperately want one! Will hopfully use the produce in recipes for the shop.

[Foresthillnick]

I have spent the weekend making passata and chili sauce - very hot chili sauce - using all home grown stuff expect for some mangoes for fruitiness.

I’ve had my plot for about 12 years I think - very lucky to get on before the waiting lists went mental and it is ridiculous how much I love my plot. It is a great place to lose yourself and forget about the stresses of daily life and I get to grow lots of veg and feed myself for a large part of the year. It is not easy though, tough London clay, lots of digging and carting bags and bags of manure - lots of black fly, blight, white rot, leak rust, carrot fly, slugs/snails, pigeons, foxes and other wonders of nature trying to destroy all the hard work. I don’t think I could live without my bit of land now.

[StDavid]

I grew up with one my dad loved his too & was always working on it! I’m on 3 waiting lists!!

[TimLund]

I’ve had a plot at Kent House Leisure Gardens since 1999, and just came back carrying 17.5 kg of potatoes home in a rucksack.

Last year I did a sort of gardening blog on the Sydenham Town Forum, which was about my garden and allotment equally.

#gardeningSE26

This year beans of all sorts - broad, french & runner - have been much better. Apples are OK, with the Charles Ross looking good,

although the yield from the Discovery was much less. Soft fruit - gooseberries, red, white & blackcurrants were good, but raspberries a bit disappointing. The strawberry plants are probably getting a bit old, and I didn’t really bother too much about them.

The ground now is incredibly hard - digging up potatoes today I was lifting huge, heavy lumps of earth on the fork.

The lack of water the last couple of months will have reduced yields, and I don’t have time to water everything. I tend to concentrate just on the runner and french beans, and some butternut squashes, which will be ready in maybe a month.

[Foresthillnick]

Nice blog - I keep promising I will record a season on a blog but I never get round to it.

Are those Pink Fir Apple spuds? One of my favourites - they did ok this year for me this year but slightly disappointed with the yield although most are good sized. Still got my main crop in though.

My ground is basically brick at this time of the year but I have added tons of manure and organic matter. We get Brockley Brewery’s waste hops and grain so we have a nice aroma at times - good for the soil though.

[TimLund]

They are indeed Pink Fir Apples! Some plants this year only produced tiny spuds, which I guess was the weather.

I hire a van to to get well rotted horse manure from the RDA stables in Mottingham. It’s free, but they ask for a donation. It’s also fairly strenuous work digging it out, bagging it up, carrying it to the van, unloading, and then getting to my plot!

If you’ve nothing better to do this Sunday, come to our Open Day - I’ll be on the gate.

[McBain23]

Got a plot over at Grange Lane allotments on Sydenham Hill. 4.5 years on the waiting list to get it but it’s lovely. Must say though that my Mum-in-law does most of the work, I just help out with some digging/border maintenance etc. Slugs a problem as mentioned in a previous post but not end of the world, we get green beans, rasps, 3 kinds of potatoes, courgettes, toms plus both cherry and apple trees now in fledgling states. We also have a grape vine but no tools for making wine, if anyone does and wants some give me a shout, we can split the booze 50/50

Couple of pics - what a view!

Kids love it up there.

These are from back at the springtime - here’s the aforementioned vine. I proceeded to trim the borders after this shot lol.

[TimLund]

My courgettes got devastated by mosaic virus this year. Next year I’m going to go for a resistant strain.

I’d not bother with making wine, although lots of people on our site do. IMHO wine making requires very special skills, attention to hygiene, and is just not worth the bother given what you can get for just over £5 a bottle. Other soft fruit, like black currants, raspberries, are much better value for money

[McBain23]

Aye I was thinking the same - it came with the plot so we just trim it back a bit from time to time.

Mosaic virus i’ve not heard of that one - unlucky!

[TimLund]

One of the downsides of allotments is that you generally have more problem with diseases. I have a garden too, which is where I grow tomatoes - at the plot they are too likely to be affected by blight

[TimLund]

I used to have a really productive vine, which I planted against a south facing wall in some neighbours’ garden, but a new tenant arrived, and wanted to take over managing the garden. It’s not been pruned properly since. A couple of years I got really good crops, and one year I gave most of them to a friend to make into wine. It was not a success.

The grapes themselves (Black Hamburgh) were really nice and sweet, but they come all at once, so it’s hard to cope with them all. I have since grown some more vines, in my garden, from cuttings, but I’ve not had as good a location. This year, at last, I have some grapes - but only three bunches. Next year it might be better!

[Jon_Robinson]

we’ve grown tomatoes this year, from a mixed box of six from B&Q - they look like the same varieties in that first post.
we’ve got rhubarb (from Tim Lunds plants on his allotment that he split), and some soft fruit, and loads of fennel!
I make my own wine, beer, and mostly cider - I’m more than happy to take any excess apples, to turn into cider, in exchange for a bottle or two of the end product of course.
yes, wine is available cheaply, but if the fruit is free, or foraged, and you already have the equipment, then decent wine isn’t that hard to make, easily comparable to a bottle at around £5-7.
elderflower champagne, elderberry cider, ginger beer, and rhubarb and ginger wine have all been suceses, and plum and damson wine was also drinkable, if a bit sweet.

[oakr]

No allotment for me, just what I can grow in the garden, adn what can not only escape the squirrels, birds, slugs and other delights, but also my two young boys and their various unintentional assaults on the plants!

This year I’ve had my first grapes ever from my 2 grape vines (one in a container in a greenhouse, one in the soil outside (running about a month behind) so I am very pleased about this!

Raspberrys doing well, had loads of runner beans, lots of peas earlier on the year (lots is comparative and probably nowhere near an allotment supply!).

Cucumbers have been reasonable, tomato plants a bit late but quite a few coming through now. Courgettes ok.

Hoped to get some Kiwi fruit but looks like they have stopped growing :-(.

Had a good crop of plums from one tree in a container, but they nearly all ripened when we were away, so out house guests and the squirrels got to enjoy most of them.

We have 2 apple trees (small dwarf type cordon ones) only one with fruit.

No fruit from our pear tree this year, thing it had too many fruit on it last year so hoping for a good crop next year.

Grew some sweetcorn for the first time which was not bad for a first attempt (6 plants).

Have some peppers growing, did not do well initially but now loads on.

I’ve only been doing this for a couple of years and still very much learning from my mistakes!

I try to grow food the kids like to eat, so will need to change some things next year. Plums, peas, cucumber, raspberry, blackberry, tomato and apples to stay, and hopefully some pears coming through. Courgettes, beans and peppers probably out, may try some pumpkins for Halloween, and would like to try some potato and broccoli.

Oh and I forgot lettuce of course - always good to grow.

For anyone thinking I have a massive garden, it’s under 40ft, mainly lawn and children’s toys!

I may start a gardening thread next year for beginners like myself so we can learn together and get some advice from some of the experts on here!

Will try and get some photos up.

[Daffodil]

Good idea, I think it’s always helpful to speak to other gardeners / allotmenters in the same location, as usually similar plants do well and there are often the same soil issues.

I’d like to add manure to my plot but it’s so expensive in the garden centre so good to get tips like the Mottingham stables too!

[Foresthillnick]

There are a number of places for free manure locally (some not so local)

Surrey Docks City Farm has a mountain of it and although technically free I do leave a couple of quid in the donation box.

Dulwich Stables is normally free - esp in Winter but often very fresh and needs to rot down but great for making hot beds.

Shannon Leigh Stables had a huge pile of wonderful rotted manure - black gold!

Lastly Southborough Lane Stables has a pile big enough to see on Google Earth!

I am sure there are other as well - For a while someone used to dump bags and bags of it outside our plot but they seem to have moved on now!

Thanks for the replies everyone - nice to see a few others growing.
I’ll post some pics of my plot and site soon. Some of the sheds are a work of art!

[TimLund]

Just brought back the last of this year’s potatoes, from soil still like brick.

Say hello to me on the gate if you come to the Kent House Leisure Gardens Open Day this Sunday!

[TimLund]

So, with thanks to @Foresthillnick a horseshit map of SE London

[TimLund]

Before

and after - I suspect it was a fox

because when I found them, the stalk was lying on the brickwork, as if pulled back by something.