Advice for a hopeless gardener

[GillyBee]

18 might be parsnip seedheads if it is 5ft tall. I'd compost them. Yes you may be making seedy compost but the seeds have probably already fallen out of the plants onto your soil anyway.
If parsnip you may have a lot of self sown parsnip seedlings. They look like this.
https://www.seedparade.co.uk/news/sowing/parsnips/
The stick tied to a stick looks like it might be a raspberry cane. You will see new shoots coming up in spring from the ground near the plant to make next year's canes. The cane may or may not put shoots out depending on how old it is. You may get fruit next year if it is an autumn fruiting type or you may need to wait until the year after for the standard type.

[jennyjj01]

18 might be parsnip seedheads if it is 5ft tall. I'd compost them. Yes you may be making seedy compost but the seeds have probably already fallen out of the plants onto your soil anyway.
If parsnip you may have a lot of self sown parsnip seedlings. They look like this.
https://www.seedparade.co.uk/news/sowing/parsnips/
The stick tied to a stick looks like it might be a raspberry cane. You will see new shoots coming up in spring from the ground near the plant to make next year's canes. The cane may or may not put shoots out depending on how old it is. You may get fruit next year if it is an autumn fruiting type or you may need to wait until the year after for the standard type.

Oh wow. Thanks.

I'd never have guessed parsnip seedheads. You may be be right. I'll pop one of the pods and post some seed pics. I think i have some parsnip seeds to compare to.

The raspberry cane would make sense, fitting in with what I've found of blackberry and strawberry, nearby. Since this has not been cultivated at all this year, anything alive and tied to a cane must be a stubborn perennial

I think somebody's been harvesting the rhubarb. I'll look to split and move it.

This bunch of photos was my first quick tour. I'll take some better macro pics excluding the now identified strawbs and blackberries. There's lots I didn't snap. Google image search has been pretty handy identifying these pics.

I read and see that anything, including weed seeds, can go on a BIG HOT compost heap if I'm prepared to nurture that for many years, but I don't have a LARGE heap and I want to TRY to get some leaf mould and faster compost going from the ample dropped leaves and less troublesome weeds. The existing compost heap is small, overgrown and looks rubbish. I'll be burning a day just sorting out that. I'm inclined to bin off these seedheads off-site, but compost everything else. I've seen the suggestion of soaking seedy weeds and having them decay underwater.

I have a round bin up there so I'm going to try shredding stuff up with my strimmer. Maybe also lay out some stuff and shred it with my mower.

Can you tell, my head's still spinning and I don't want to mess up in month #1, or WASTE it..

More haste, less speed.....

[GillyBee]

Dont sweat it. Allotments are learning curves. You will make mistakes - but you will learn from them as I did when I tried to keep the weeds down on mine by covering it in straw several inches deep.
It kept the weeds down pretty well that first season. Then it rained and I discovered that the slugs absolutely loved it and multiplied like mad. Oh and it was colder than bare soil in early spring so my potatoes got frosted. I didn't do it a second year except round the strawberrries. (The clue is in the name)

[jennyjj01]

Dont sweat it. Allotments are learning curves. You will make mistakes - but you will learn from them as I did when I tried to keep the weeds down on mine by covering it in straw several inches deep.
It kept the weeds down pretty well that first season. Then it rained and I discovered that the slugs absolutely loved it and multiplied like mad. Oh and it was colder than bare soil in early spring so my potatoes got frosted. I didn't do it a second year except round the strawberrries. (The clue is in the name)

Thanks,
I anticipate mistakes and 'cost them in'. I may get cross if crops fail, but not half as much as if I somehow quit or neglect it.
It's all one big 'speriment into my own personality. Can I stick with this and not have it be a fad? Will I do the venture justice. It's not a certainty.

Some nice food resilience will be a bonus.

Slight bad news. I'm not reassured that the soil may be subject to various ailments that MIGHT ruin leeks, onions, spuds and tomatoes. The very things I plan to grow. Oh hum.

[jennyjj01]

OK, Friends..... A little game for you... I just know you'll want to play.

I'm A Weed. Get Me Out Of Here! Round 4

So, who's up to a bit of an ID parade.
Anyways, without further ado. Who can identify these.... Bonus points if you can tell me how to save them ( cutting or root ball? )

First up is a climber about 4 ft tall. it's twined itself around something and thrown out individual pods at regular 2 inch intervals. no sign of green foliage, so I'm guessing an annual.
Do I dispose of the seed pods off-site
Bursting open a seed pod, 4 bits of pip that look pretty sick

Next another one about 3 feet high. This one looks like a dead cane with litterally just a couple of leaves. But there's a plate sized area of healthy leaves at the base.. Here's a leaf. My guess is raspberry.

Next candidate: Again about 3 ft. Lots of 4mm seed pods. No greenery.
Again... To dispose of seeds offsite?

IMG_20230109_155426.jpg (68.71 KiB) Viewed 391 times

An odd one this. has seeds like tri-lobed ravioli. No greenery.

IMG_20230109_155355.jpg (83.22 KiB) Viewed 391 times

And last but not least... Long dead but with plenty seeds

I confess. Wasn't well enough to break ground today. Still a bit lurgied up and it was a darned cold day.

[steptoe]

If i am honest we cleared ours of everything and then when bindweed popped up i pushed a cane in beside it to let it grow on then once i had a nice strong plant i hit ti with roundup , the rest went to the wall so to speak , then it was all rotovated then i worked out where stuff was going off my plan and put the paths in i trod it down back and forward to squash it down the we used some sand to get a bit of a base then laid slabs on some , on the big areas so between say spuds and cabbage i would just tread a path down and then the next year rotovate it out again but between the big area and the raspberry rows i put in slabs and built boards down the rows so that i can throw in muck each year over the cans .

Get some rhubarb planted , if allowed look for raspberry canes i like the older canes but here we went for producers as well , get a blackberry in or 2 plant one either side of the allotment and then run wire frame from side to side and train the blackberry along them like they do with grapes you get a better haul to .

it all depends on what you like ot eat really you will find that out over time

[GillyBee]

Jenny.

If the mysteries on your allottment are not clearly tied to a cane or support and are currently brown sticks there is a good chance that they are either dead weeds or dead annual crops. You treat both the same. Compost in a hot heap or drown the seedheads or maybe just black bag them and leave for a year or two.
The only "useful" stuff you will find down there at the moment is overwintering fruit which wil either have leaves (rhubarb, strawberries) or be tied to a support or may be a sturdy bush with some green if you cut into it. (Currants or gooseberries) These are likely to be planted in rows or blocks not at random.
All allotments get blight. Some potatoes have a degree of resistance (e.g. Sarpo varieties) or you can grow earlies and dodge the peak problem time.
You won't know how bad the white rot is unless you try to frow some onions. Garlic is most likely to catch it. Leeks are least likely.
Sweetcorn, pumpkins, butternut squash, courgettes, runner or French beans are all worth a try. Every year some crops will do better than others. This year I did well for tomatoes but my Oca failed almost completely. A couple of years ago it was the other way round. It is all part of the fun.

[jennyjj01]

Thanks Steptoe, GillyBee,

Got it! Not tied or prospering...... Out it comes.

I have identified a fair area of strawberry, totalling maybe one or two square metres. It is enveloped in weeds, so I'll see what I can do with that. There is a patch of rhubarb and there is what I think is a raspberry stick. Plus a little, healthy looking bald bush of some sort about a yard round. I think it's supposed to be there, so it may stay till it bears leaves and identifies itself
.
Drowning the seeds is something I considered. Most weeds will go into compost, but copious seed heads can go into a trug of water with holes in. I've read that with a bit of plastic and construction, it can be made to harvest a liquid fertilizer, free of weeds.

Weedkiller is not yet in my plan. Nore is huge investment in compost or anything.

Overgrown paths already around the lot, but I'll be using cardboard fruit boxes and a bit of ropey pallet wood to grow a path down the middle.

Weather forecast for tomorrow seems wet, but I'm hoping to soon break some ground.

Blight I truly dread. 2021 it was bad in the neighbourhood. It would break my heart to lose entire crops of my staples.

Onion rot is another dread because I'm told there is some on site, generally, and maybe a new imported leek ruiner. Bear in mind that this plot is un-tended for over a year so I MIGHT get off light.

Thanks again.

[jennyjj01]

An odd one this. has seeds like tri-lobed ravioli. No greenery.

AH! The one with seeds like ravioli..... I'm thinking Parsnips gone to seed. Good spot GillyBee

[steptoe]

Hi Jen

Well if you have bindweed and i think most allotment sites do you do not want to try digging it out you will just make the problem worse , the best and only way to deal with it is to put a stick in and let it grow get a nice bushy plant then spray the roots need to be killed and roundup was the only one we found would work .

If you have some plants on site yes try and save them but remember strawberries do need to be replaced every few years to get good crops so try and grow runners off your plants so you have fresh plants , the bush you say could well be a gooseberry or may be a currant , the only way you will know is liek you say let it grow then see , tyr and use black plastic mambrane on aeras not in use as that will kill all the top growing weeds , you will still get some of the tougher weeds but again just dig them out as and when do not be tempted to try and keep an area clear as just soil the weeds will beat you , we use to just move ther sheet round as and when .

Ask others what spuds do good on site because as i say when i moved here i grew desiree and well terrible spuds , down south desiree we had monsters we use to split a jacket between the wife and i , also garlic is great , we had blight on our allotments but i think most years we got away with out getting hit may be 1 years out of 12 got us , again the best people to ask will be others on site , if you see some little old man or woman sat on a seat with a breww just try the hi i ma new and just wondering what you could recommend i try growing most will be only o happy to share knowledge , if there are show growers don't even try with them we had one guy was so far up is own exhaust pipe so to speak he would look down on us food growers and say allotments are for the show grower not so fool trying to feed themselevves