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ALLOTMENTS HINTS AND TIPS |
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> Thinking about an allotment? |
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Go on, go for it! Enjoy fresh seasonal vegetables, all with a flavour hard to beat, and that special quality mark "I grew it myself".
Find out about local allotment sites and plot availability from your local council - they may well have a dedicated Allotments Officer.
Before you take on a plot, visit your chosen site one |
Sunday afternoon; look around and ask some of the allotment holders for their advice.
Ask about problems with shade, waterlogging, or vandalism; ask about the kind of soil, access to water, and the history of the plot.
Don’t be shy! The plot-holders around you have an interest in your success - if your plot doesn’t work, it will revert to weeds --- and everybody around you suffers. So do ask for advice, help and ideas! Don’t however feel constrained to follow all the advice you are given.
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ALLOTMENTS HINTS AND TIPS |
| > Managing your plot |
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Your new plot is a weed and bramble infested jungle? Don’t worry, most new plots are! Trying to clear it all, in one super-human effort, can be pretty demoralising - better to clear a manageable “bit”, and get that working really well.
Best time to start? Definitely autumn or early winter - give yourself plenty time to clear and prepare beds for the new growing season, and |
you'll have the time in spring to invest in sowing and tending your crops. If you start in spring, it's a bit harder to juggle the time you need to do both tasks well.
Mark your plot out into beds - 4 foot wide by any suitable length; the idea is that you don't walk on your growing soil, but can easily reach everything in the bed from the path.
Decision time! Do you want to grow organically?
The HDRA
THE organic gardening resource.
In which case, clearing is probably a digging job; lift as much of the weed cover as you can, and use it to start a compost heap; use the fork and your hands to remove as much of the weed root systems as you can. Alternatives - a rotovator? But beware, it will chop every weed into hundreds of little pieces, each of which can become a new weed! Or try a light-proof covering, or mulch, of thick black plastic, old carpet (woollen with natural backing - NOT rubber backed artificial fibres), or thick layers of cardboard and/or newspaper). Or weedkiller?
Again - take it easy; don't overdo it, or be over-ambitious! Better to clear a small bed really well, and have good crops from it; cover the unused part of your plot with the plastic or carpet, and come back to clearing it later in the season.
Start your compost heap! Make it as simple or complicated as you wish, but do get one going - it's good for maintaining fertile and healthy soil. Look at the plots around you - plots with compost heaps are usually the ones with good deep beds bulging over the path edges; plots without compost heaps are often those where the soil has sunk below path level.
The Community Composting Network - for further information. |
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ALLOTMENTS HINTS AND TIPS |
| > Thinking about an allotment? |
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A few links to follow up?
Work out a rotation plan - at least keep your crops moving round the plot; to grow the same crop family in the same place year after year is to build up a reservoir of disease and pests.
Crop Rotation - Bob Flowerdew on Gardeners' Question Time, sensible and succinct.
The compost heap (again!) is an essential on the plot - almost all your garden waste (except horsetail, potatoes and potato plants, and brassica roots) should go on. Good compost is an art in itself! For a good nitrogen rich starter, don't go to the garden centre - try human urine (sorry! but true).
The Community Composting Network - for further information.
Try anything once - vegetable, variety, or technique. For all the wonderful advice you'll get from books and on websites, the plants know themselves best; so don't worry about trying something different - and your unorthodox method may well work for you.
Slug control - slug pellets are less than 5% poison (which lasts perhaps 48 hours), and 95% bait (which attracts slugs in for weeks afterwards). Try a few natural methods first!
Slug Control - balanced, easy to read, and practical.
keep your plot clear of "slug hotels" (waste wood, stones, buckets, pots, plastic bags - all those cool damp places the slugs love);
use your hoe regularly - especially in spring and early summer;
learn to recognise slug eggs, and their breeding places; and destroy!
use beer traps, or half grapefruits (emptied or removed regularly);
or use barriers of crushed eggshell.
Plant a border of French Marigolds (Tagetes) round your brassicas to deter pests; or among your carrots to confuse carrot fly. Sow a few hardy annuals around the plot to attract in pollinating insects (bees and bumble bees), and predator insects (hoverflies, wasps, and ladybirds). There are many more useful companion plant combinations - and even if they don't work, a few nasturtiums around the plot look beautiful, and add a tangy colour to your salads.
Comfrey tea - grow a bed of comfrey (best to get the variety Bocking 14, which will not self-seed and become a weed); good in compost, as a green manure. Or fill a bucket with comfrey leaves (or nettles), cover with water, and leave to stew for a few days. The foul-smelling liquid gives an excellent plant food. Leave it for 2 to 4 weeks, and you will have a very potent brew, which should be diluted with at least 10 parts water.
Don't leave patches of bare soil - try a few of the green manures available. They are a very easy way of maintaining soil fertility and a healthy soil structure; well worth experimenting with.
Adding manure and compost can alter the acidity of your soil - it is a good investment to do a pH test, even with a cheap kit from a garden centre. Add lime to bring your soil back to a healthy level for your plants - it's best to add lime just before your brassica, as it also controls club-root.
Know your soil. The simplest test is to pick up a handful, and press it into a ball.
If the ball simply falls apart in your hand, you have a light sandy soil, which will warm up fast but drain fast; easy to work, but it needs organic matter (manure!) to help the soil hold water and nutrients better;
If the ball holds its shape and sticks together, you have a heavy clay-type soil, which will not drain easily, and is slow to warm up; hard to work, but full of plant nutrients. make the nutrients available by adding organic matter (manure, again!) to increase the air in the soil and help drainage;
a good soil is somewhere in between these two, with a good balance between sand (helping drainage), and clay (holding nutrients in the soil).
The World of Soil.
Visit your local potato day, and you can buy as many or as few individual tubers as you wish. A great way of discovering new varieties, or finding ones you like (and varieties which like you!).
Hampshire HDRA - maintain a list of local Potato Days. |
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