Kitchen Garden Forum

Bonjour Madames et Monsieurs, I have returned from holiday in France with recharged batteries and ready to go, I have added my latest update which I hope you enjoy, regards Steve.

http://www.myallotments.com

Good evening Steve, so glad you all had a great time in France, please do tell me is there any French people left there now, or is it nealy all British folk.

Somebody i work for has a house somewhere in Normandy, and she says how good the cakes are.

I bet it will be nice for you to settle back into your allotment now though.
It always amazes me how things sown now grow at a tremendous rate of knots.

One thing Steve i can't get the slideshow of your holiday to come up, it hasn't been censored has it.

Really enjoyed seeing your pictures, we took our son when he was twelve it made him cry ! he is now a serving soldier in REME and we are very proud of him you cannot beat the French a t cakes i very rarely eat one here but it is a must over there ! we hope to retire to France within the next 5 years fingers crossed

Steve

Could you please tell me about your paths, I see you just use weed surpressing fabric, how do you keep it clean? and does it wear ok, I have bark on mine which of course is not permanent and gets dirt in it, was thinking of changing to either your method or putting gravel on the fabric.........what do you think?

Compo

Lovely photos of your plot as usual. Your leeks make me green with envy. With these standards I can't quite work out why you weren't exhibiting at the Chelsea Flower Show !! Perhaps next year?

Hello Steve
Everything is superb as always.
One thing that has often struck me about your plots though is that all the veg plants appear very generously spaced out. Do you use normal spacing and add extra inches to make hoeing and so on easier or is it just a trick of the camera that makes it look this way? Perhaps its still early in the season and stuff hasn't grown together?
I always try to plant stuff closer than the book says, hoping that the weeds will get smothered!

John

John, you raise an interesting point about plant spacing and I wonder if everybody else follows the recommended planting/spacing rules? I suspect it partly depends on how much land you have available. Certainly hoeing is easier if there is more space and you're not continually worrying about damaging plants & roots but I'm afraid I break most of the rules trying to grow a quart in a pint pot and just manure as much as I can to keep soil fertility at a good level. Is there any evidence that following suggested planting distances improves crop yields?

Whoops. Apologies, my last question diverted from the thread so am reposting in Best Practices on sowing and planting.