Allotment strawberry beds

My new strawberry plants arrived in the middle of last week, so I grabbed the chance on Monday to go and plant them out. Okay, that’s not strictly accurate, I skived off work (I work for myself, so I had to explain myself to myself when I got back from the allotment) to take advantage of the good weather, and I’m glad I did because it has rained, non-stop, since then.

I ordered Strawberry Alice because they are late season and I already had runners from our old strawberry bed, which are mid-season, so I hope this will give us strawberries for longer. I’ve decided to plant them in two different raised beds, partly because the way the runners from the old neglected bed (which, let me remind you, was not neglected by us but by the previous allotment owners) had managed to travel at least two yards outside the bed, so anything that limits that rampaging has to be a good thing! Himself put in another two rows of broad beans, which makes five (and I feel sure there should be a joke about how many rows of beans make five, but I can't think how it would go) while I planted the two strawberry beds.


The top of the plot, previously known as the allotment shame, has been rotavated and as I had a new compost bin to install, I got on with that too, turning the compost from bins one and two and setting up bin three. I’m expecting the compost from bin one to be ready in spring, bin two in the autumn of next year, but bin three won’t be ready for a couple of years as it has been started off with a lot of twiggy stuff that came out of the rotavation process.

Now we need to get some weed-suppressing membrane down over the dug area, in the hope of smothering a few of the perennial weeds that will recover from being chopped to pieces in short order. In fact, if you want to propagate bindweed (but who would be so insane?) rotavating it is the best way, as every tiny fragment puts out roots and becomes a new plant. I hope I got most of the bindweed out before the machine arrived but it doesn’t take more than a single length of the disgusting stuff to spread itself right over a lovely newly dug area – especially if the blades have chopped it up and spread it out, all ready to take over!

Labels: allotment-bindweed, allotment-broad beans, allotment-compost, allotment-strawberries