19th July

A great weekend for the garden, but not a great weekend for gardening. Sunshine was scarce and frequently replaced by torrential rain. Oh well, the veg appreciated it. As did I on Sunday morning when it was time to dig up the first of my potatoes!

I've only ever grown potatoes in containers before so was a bit nervous about having to dig them out the ground rather than just emptying tubs out into the wheelbarrow. It turned out to be a lot simpler than I thought (made much easier by the rain softened ground) and the first row yielded an impressive 5kg from 4 seed potatoes (and I only speared 2 with the fork while digging!).


The one small random red potato must be an escapee from the next row where I believe the Red Duke of York potatoes are. We had some of these simply boiled and served with a little butter and they were delicious (as were the mange tout also in the photo).

4th July

Eveything is growing like crazy! The courgettes and butternut squash are in and spreading rapidly spreading over their bed. We've got more lettuce than we know what to do with. Cabbages are the sizes of footballs, onions are bigger than tennis balls. Tomato plants are starting to flower. Potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes are forming a veritable forest and will be ready for digging up soon (I've removed the flowers from the potatoes so they will put all their energy into the crop underground).

The haul from this week (which I forgot to take a photo of) was a handful of delicious raspberries, a cabbage, 3 huge onions, 8 large carrots a whole carrier bag ful of broad beans and 2 lettuces (some of the onions, cabbage and carrots went straight into fully home grown coleslaw, it tasted a hundred times better than anything you'll ever buy from a shop!).

Picked on Sunday 21st June: A proud day!

There is a 50 pence piece in the middle above the strawberries for size reference. There were also a few more strawberries but they didn't even make it home ;-)

Mid June: All going well

The transplanted lettuces have thankfully perked up again and are growing well in their new position. Cabbages to their leftt are hearting up well and nearly ready to be picked. Two rows of pak choi have been planted in the first bed under the nets for the time being as I wasn't sure if the birds would go for them while they were tiny.



From the far end of the plot (much to my relief!) you can just see the French beans beginning to climb up their strings on the bean frame. The broad beans of them in front are cropping really well and the peas (which you can just about see among the pea sticks on the right) are growing rapidly.

The beginning of June

The lettuce is going crazy! Several have already been picked and eaten (they were delicious!). Tomatoes (grown from seed in my greenhouse) have been transplanted to the central raised bed with chilli plants (not visible here) in the bed to the left. Onions are growing well and carrots are appearing on the left in front of them. Some lettuces my Mother decided to transplant from the crammed raised bed aren't looking quite so cheerful but hopefully they will perk up when they get used their new home.

About a month in

The third raised bed has been built from more unwanted pallet wood (two boards deep this time so I can use it for tomatoes), stained to match the others and filled. Lettuces are popping up in the one on the right, carrots behind them and onions 2 beds back. Cabbages and everything else are growing well.

From the other end of the plot you can see the Jerusalem artichokes, rhubarb (both donated by another plot neighbour) and potatoes appearing. The pidgeons were taking a bit too much interest in the growing broad beans so we've netted them for the time being until they are a bit bigger and can look after themselves.

Week 3: The shed is up!

It came "flat-pack" but wasn't actually that difficult to put together. It took 3 of us about 3 hours in all.

You can see in this picture that strawberries have taken up residence next to the raspberries, cabbages (donated by a kind plot neighbour) have been planted and the potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes have gone in (hence the earthed up rows). We've also removed the weed suppressing fabric from the end beds. It wasn't 100% keeping the beds weed free so we took it up so we could weed underneath.

Week 2: I've ordered a shed!

I really am going to be like Arthur Fowler now! (I plan on keeping a bottle of sloe gin under an upturned flower pot!).

We headed down the allotment on Saturday morning very excited at the impending arrival. It wouldn't be delivered until later that week but a base needed building for it. Old paving slabs were located and builders sand purchased. It was a lot of hard (dull) work getting all the sand laid out and the slabs level but once finished looked like a little patio! My Father had managed to lay his hands on a few unwanted wooden pallets so they were soon put to use with 4 being turned into a compost bin and 2 being knocked apart and the planks used for raised beds. All were stained the same colour (I like a neat plot!) and the raised beds were filled with a mixture of compost and topsoil. The right hand one had lettuces sown in it. The other one will become home to tomatoes and chillis.

You will also see above the addition of some posts at the far end of the allotment. The smaller ones closer to the camera will be used to build supports for the raspberries.

The others have caused mass bemusement among the old chaps on the plot with numerous people staring and popping by to ask what the goal posts are for! Well, they're for beans! It's a method of growing that is much reported on veg gardening forums but is entirely new to my site it seems. Basically, you build a set of "goal posts" and run strings from the higher set to the lower set then down to the ground. Runner and climbing french beans climb up these instead of the traditional canes. The main benefit of this method is that the beans hang down under the strings in a canopy so are easy to pick, rather than the traditional cane teepee most people use, where the beans hang down the middle so are harder to spot and pick (many people have also reported much greater yields of beans using this method). The shaded area underneath the canopy of leaves can be used to grow things like lettuce which don't like too much direct sunlight.

The 1st Weekend

I'm not going to lie to prospective allotmenteers, the first few days on a new plot are bloody hard work! Mine had been rotovated which makes it look all nice and tidy but in fact means that all the weeds have just been cut into millions of tiny pieces, the majority of which will re-grow at a rapid rate given half a chance. So, the first day on the plot was spent digging and removing root after root after root, all by hand. We quickly realised it was a never ending battle. We were never going to get them all out so in the end we decided to cover the lot in weed suppressing fabric and plant though it. This at least meant we could get started straight away and not miss the boat on getting in certain crops that need to be planted early.

So, we marked our beds out (with wood chip paths inbetween for ease of access for weeding etc), got the end two beds covered and planted broad beans and raspberries through holes we cut in the fabric. Our patch of field was finally starting to look like a proper plot!

My Father was straight down to the Parish Council office the next morning and by the end of the week, a plot had been allocated to us. It was a new plot on an area of the allotment site that had never been used for growing before (in fact it had formed part of a makeshift car park). It had been ploughed some months before and recently rotovated so was a completely blank canvas for me to get stuck into.

When you think of allotments, the image that comes into most people's minds is Athur Fowler hiding from Pauline in his shed. In the most part, you wouldn't be far wrong.

However, there is a new breed of allotmenteer emerging. They're younger, fitter and far more clueless than their predecessors. They do however care where their food comes from and so in an effort to cut down their food miles, reduce their carbon footprint, save a few quid and eat some proper fresh fruit and veg they are taking on plots all over the country. This is where I come in!

After growing small amounts of veg at home, I quickly got more and more interested (I promise you, it's addictive!) and was soon looking for more space to expand my crops. The obvious solution was an allotment but I was not sure this would be feasible for me. The closest ones to me (or rather, the house I was renting a room in at the time) have a 5 year waiting list and the other option available was too far for me to be able to pop in daily and water in hot weather. Fortunately my parents stepped in. Not only did my Father know for a fact that there was room on the site closest to them and our family home but my Mother kindly volunteered to water when I couldn't get over to do so. I'd found a way to make my allotment dream a reality!