Allotment planning

We have:

• One very large cold frame
• One eight foot by six greenhouse (but not actually erected yet, and not actually on the allotment, it’s still in boxes on the floor at home)
• half of one allotment and three quarters of another, that could technically be called ours, although it doesn’t work like that – we are growing collectively so there’s no dividing up plots into ‘your’ bed and ‘my’ bed, we’re all in the same bed (that’s not as dirty as it sounds)
• good but somewhat clay soil: one allotment suffers from bracing winds, the other may possibly suffer from not much sun at one end.


So now you know as much as I know. What would be your priorities for spring if you were me?

We’ve already ordered potatoes to plant on 201 and 235 has a large bed full of overwintering onions and garlic and a small bed with spring cabbage (not doing well) rhubarb chard (sort of okay) and broad beans – we will want more potatoes on 235 so we have to decide what varieties we’re going to plant there, given that the maincrop suffered from slugs but not blight. Everybody got tomato blight last year, so I’m going to try and work out which varieties might be a bit more blight resistant in Sussex, start them off in the greenhouse and move them down to the allotments when they are ready. But what I really want is to grow something interesting, something exciting, something to celebrate our first spring on both plots – ideas?

Labels: allotment-crops, allotment-onions, allotment-planning

Allotment psychology

What does your allotment say about you? I’m fascinated by other people’s plots and the way they reveal personalities.

On our site we have quite a few very orderly allotments, everything measured with a ruler (and sometimes, it looks like the plants have been subjected to a spirit level as well, they are so perfectly level), everything in its place, neat, tidy, productive and organized.

And we have many higgledy piggledy plots, with haphazard fences and twisty paths, odd-shaped beds and weird little bits and pieces of furniture, sculpture and other idiosyncrasies. Angela has a rustic swing on hers, our next door neighbour has a porch that sags in the middle so it looks like a boat hung up on the front of his shed, and there’s a wonderful allotment on one end of one of the rows that has a chessboard area planted with lettuces and herbs and two topiary ‘kings’. And there are lots like this one, with an exuberance of things that aren’t quite crops but probably couldn’t be called flowerbeds. A sort of compromise between utility and beauty.

Ours falls somewhere between the two extremes. Our beds are straight(ish) but our paths definitely meander. Our fence is level but probably won’t end up being straight because we’ve only put up half of it and already we can see that it would be a lot easier to go round a couple of old tree roots than dig them out. I suppose that anybody looking at our plot would say that we have good intentions but get derailed quite easily, and that’s probably true of our lifestyle in general! I wonder whether any researcher has ever investigated the way that our allotments match up to our personality types – it would be a fascinating project.

Labels: allotment-beds, allotment-planning, allotment-sheds