Allotment clearing, tours and planning

We are planning for next year. Several people have talked to us about the ‘seven-crop’ system and it makes a lot of sense. Basically you just grow seven key crops that you know you’ll eat.

Hmmm … except we already have nine raised beds, which would just become nine weedbeds, if we didn’t keep them full of something.

Perhaps we need to buy a lot of weed suppressant and just cover up a lot of the plot? Ugly idea but a functional solution. At least it would kill off our thistle army.

Anyway, we’ve decided we didn’t grow enough peas, that we want more potatoes (or a greater variety of potatoes) and that next year we will plant our garden area, so we actually have somewhere to sit down. But that’s as far as we’ve got.

In the interim, we have a series of allotment tours happening next weekend, in both Brighton and Hove (we're Hove, actually) but at present we are very short of takers. You can book here: Allotment tour - it’s free! And we have a fantastic shop selling seeds and tools and so forth.

And that raised a question in my mind. We are constantly being told that there are people wanting to grow their own etc, and our waiting list is VERY long for a plot, so why aren’t people clamouring to come on a tour?

Any answers? I wondered if it was because it’s an outdoor thing and the weather might not be good … but perhaps it’s some kind of communication gap between the allotment and the general public. I really don’t understand – I thought people would be chewing our arms off for a tour, and I wish I could find out why we aren’t getting much take-up.

Labels: allotment crops, allotment-tour, allotment-weeds

Allotments: the bad side

As well as measuring sunflowers and shooting the breeze, there are other things we allotment officials have to do as we tour the site, one of which is looking at the plots and deciding who needs a weed notice. On our site, after a certain number of weed notices the tenant gets a termination notice and then we (under our new rules) divide some plots into four, offer each quarter to a new tenant and then, when they’ve proved they can cope with a full plot, move them up to a full or half plot, as they desire.

That’s the theory. Of course, from time to time, we have to cast that stern eye over our own plots, and 201, to be honest, is heading for a weed notice! See, I don’t hide the ugliness at the heart of our paradise. We won’t get a weed notice, not because I’m on the committee (they were handing out weed notices to each other like Christmas cards last year!) but because the site rep who covers my area knows that we’ve had a tough few months, first with my stomach op and then with Himself getting swine flu. Also, the plot was totally neglected before we took it over in November 2008 and it takes more than a year to get to grips with really ingrained perennial weeds. So that, along with our health woes, gives us a few month’s grace to get this mess tidied up.

So if you’re an allotment holder, and you’re struggling to cope for some reason, talk to your allotment committee BEFORE you get a warning, not after. It helps us when we’re going round the site if we know there’s a reason for your lack of good housekeeping, and it helps you if you know that your committee understands why you might not be on top of the weed problem.

Labels: allotment-committee, allotment-rules, allotment-weeds

Allotment Learning Curve – what we won’t do next year

When everything is so busy, and the thistles are growing faster than almost anything else on the plot, even though we thought we’d pulled every last one of them up in November, and when, if you stand still, the bindweed actually grabs your ankles and tries to climb up your leg, it can be difficult to stop and take stock.

But we did.

We sat down and looked at what we’d grown and decided what we need more of, and less of, in 2010.

• First, asparagus peas. Like The Cottage Smallholder we have decided that these are a swizz! The companies that market these as a vegetable should be prosecuted under the Trade Descriptions Act (or whatever) as I don’t think even a hungry goat would enjoy them. They are fabulously pretty, and we’ve decided to use up the many seeds we have left as a ground cover crop for any bare soil we have next year – they should work like any other legume and if we cut the tops off to compost, their ground covering behaviour which keeps down weeds, plus the pretty flowers (and the roots left in the soil to convey nitrogen) mean we won’t have entirely wasted our money on them. But we will never, ever eat them again. Vile.

• Second, we won’t grow outdoor tomatoes. Ours have developed blossom end rot through uneven watering – not because we watered unevenly but because deluges of rain, followed by a couple of sweltering days, then more rain made it impossible to give them a regular watering regime. Also, blight is on the next allotment but one to ours, so I reckon they will have it by the end of the week – greenhouse tomatoes only for us next year.

• Third, more peas please! We have some kilos of peas in the freezer, but we could easily have doubled our planting – we do love our peas and there’s never a day when I look at peas and think that I can’t bother with them!

• Fourth, spuds. I think we need more varieties with later croppers to take us through the year. This suggests we need to do more research on the keeping properties of various maincrop potato varieties – we have been very happy with our potatoes this year, apart from the ones grown in tyres which were rubbishy.

And by that point, the bindweed had reached our knees and we had to start moving again or become a permanent fixture on the plot. But the picture is our French bean harvest for the day – excellent! And if you think that’s an odd shadow looming over them, it’s Rebus, the Cairn Terrier, who is very fond of raw French beans and will ‘guard’ the trug all day for a single bean as his reward.

Labels: allotment-beans, allotment-peas, allotment-potatoes, allotment-tomatoes, allotment-weeds

Allotment problems: nursery beds, weedkiller and wind

We’ve discovered a problem and it’s self-inflicted. As regular readers will know, there’s a bit if a ‘debate’ between me and Himself. I’m an organic gardener and so is he, until he sees a weed, at which point the strongest possible weedkiller gets bought and sprayed liberally around the place. Of course I don’t know anything about this until he comes home and tells me …

So a few weeks ago, Himself got fed up with me pouring boiling water on the dandelions and thistles, which, to be fair, were popping out of the ground almost faster than I could boil the kettle, and indulged in some herbicidal mania.

And then, about two weeks ago, he planted some red Brussels Sprouts seeds in our nursery bed. Up they came, and two or three days later, they disappeared. At first I thought slugs, but no, there were no tiny stumps left, the seedlings had gone without a trace.

I went to find the herbicide he’d used, but the packet had been thrown away. I’m absolutely sure that the weedkiller stayed on the surface of the soil and, as the tiny plants appeared, coated their leaves and killed them. At first he didn’t agree, but having watched a row of radishes (the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of the vegetable world: almost indestructible and a sometimes a little tough to digest) appear and disappear in similar fashion, he’s convinced. It’s a minor tragedy, especially as we used up all the seed …

And the wind on 235 is so much stronger than on 201, which is close to a line of fenced gardens, that the broad beans on the first plot are all growing at an angle and the ones on 201 are still bolt upright. We’d managed to forget this simple fact over the winter, but it’s being forcibly brought home to us by the simple effect of weather on crops. Although, not to boast or anything, we have had our first peas of the season already ...

Labels: allotment-nursery bed, allotment-peas, allotment-weeds

Allotment Problems – perennial weeds

Here’s our worst culprit, the dandelion. And as you can see, the very bad news about these two mammoth horrors is that the taproots have broken, meaning that the entire plant will grow again from the remaining fragment of root in the soil – but that does take a little while (say two years) to happen. Of course, when you get a new allotment in the autumn or winter, you have no idea what’s lurking in the soil, waiting to horrify you in spring. We have dandelions aplenty and as I don’t keep chickens, there’s no point us tolerating them in the soil. They are absolutely swine to remove, especially if you’re trying to be organic.

1. The first thing is prevention: when they are in flower, cut, hoe or kick the heads of dandelions to stop them setting seed that grows into new plants. You can’t kill them by cutting off the tops, although it does weaken them. If you have fairly friable soil they are quite easy to dig you – but if you have a clay soil, like ours, it can be back breaking work to get right down to the end of the taproot and on well-established plants it will often break before you do. Just keep hoeing the top off when the new plant emerges if you have already planted seeds or seedlings around it, but if you haven’t, when the new leaves appear as a rosette, try digging it out again, sometimes it’s easier second time around.
2. I like to pour boiling water over the plants – it cooks them alive! Of course if you’ve got loads, it’s not a time effective way of dealing with them, but where they appear in cracks in paths etc, it can be the simplest and cheapest way to remove them organically.
3. For large areas of dandelion growth, mulching with black plastic, well-weighted down, is the best way to go. First give them the boiling water treatment, then cover them and leave that mulch down for at least three seasons. You can cover the mulch fabric with chippings if you don’t like the look of it. The problem with this method is that if you want to use the soil to grow crops, it’s a nuisance to have substantial areas out of cultivation for nine months of the year.
4. Himself favours the flame thrower approach. He hires one of those weed burners and uses that. The problem with this is that you can’t do it near existing crops or wooden structures and as we have raised wooden beds and wood-edged paths, it’s of limited usefulness.
5. In the long run, better soil kills off weeds – when it’s friable and rich in organic content, weeds aren’t as happy as they are in poor acid soils and they come out a lot easier too!

And in the short run, I dig out all the roots I can, kick the tops of all the ones I can’t and treat them to a kettle-full of boiling water on a regular basis. I also remind myself that I’d rather have dandelions than couch grass, any day!

Labels: allotment-dandelions, allotment-weeds, new-allotment-problems

Allotment work is never done

201, 9 October 2008

I had a bit of a panic over the weekend, mainly because the wind and rain and rain and wind deprived me of any chance of getting to either allotment and getting things done – the only ‘good’ hours we experienced were spent in an interesting allotment site committee meeting – interesting, but not as immediately rewarding as getting something dug or planted!

We got to 201 in time to put down a single raised bed, before dodging the raindrops on our way down to 235 where we covered the broad been seedlings from the worst of the weather and turned a bit of compost in the lee of the tyre stack in the hope of generating some heat to get our super-early tyre potatoes off to a superfast start. No, we haven’t planted them get, don’t worry, we’re not getting previous with our spuds.

And then the rain became undodge-able, so we couldn’t dig, we couldn’t sow, we couldn’t light the incinerator and burn rubbish … we had to go home instead.

I tried to console myself by planting some alpine strawberry seeds and a tray of hardy tree seeds in the greenhouse, but it was scant consolation for the weather, and when I looked at the trays of potatoes and the packets of seeds piling up, and the amount of undug allotment that still remains on 201, I despaired.

201, 12 December 2008

So I dragged out the photos to remind myself how much we’d already done. And while it didn’t stop me feeling miserable about the weather, it did remind me that we’ve really made a difference on 201, given the short time that we’ve been looking after it.

Labels: allotment-committee, allotment-digging, allotment-weeds

The secret treasures of allotment life

Okay, the secrets of plot 201 is what I really mean. Like Sarah at She Who Digs we’ve got a new plot!

Well, not exactly. Once again we’re co-workers, but this time on a plot which hasn’t been worked for at least a year – and it really shows. The weeds were up to my chin when we first saw it, and the path had completely disappeared under grass and who knew what (I know what now, see below!)

201 does have a glorious shed, something like a small Swiss chalet – and of course there’s a downside to that too, because several of the panes of glass in the three windows have been broken and the pear tree that hangs over the roof in a very pretty way has also rubbed some very pretty holes in the roofing felt, meaning that the roof leaks in a very unpretty way which has to be sorted out pronto. But even so, I can imagine long summer evenings in the shed with a glass of something cool and refreshing, or maybe even an hour in a hammock under the pear tree … why not? A girl can dream.

Back to reality. I was expecting nettles, and I got them. I was prepared for thistles and that was good, because we have plenty. I was even ready for bindweed, fortunately, as that seems to be our major crop at present (it was twelve feet up a holly tree and five yards along the fence – is there a Guinness Book of Records entry for the most invasive bindweed?) but what I wasn’t expecting, and had no idea could even happen, was the total invasion of plot 201’s gorgeous brick-built path by … strawberry runners!

Yes, seriously. The middle section of the path is so riddled with tiny strawberry plantlets that it’s a danger to walk on it. When we finally found the strawberry bed they came from, we were amazed, it's more like a strawberry jungle - but an invading one. Who knew strawberries could be such a pest?

I’m reduced to digging them out, one by one, with an old fork. And there’s something really weird about that. Because as I was squatting in the rain, turfing out weeds with a bit of cutlery, I remembered a picture my Mum took of me when I was two-and-a-half, crouching in the garden, digging a hole with a soup-spoon – according to her, it was my constant obsession for months. Some things never change then!

Labels: allotment-strawberries, allotment-trees, allotment-weeds, new-allotment

Allotment problems

It’s not always fun on the allotment. Last night was our AGM and while that was actually a lot of fun, and I ended up being elected to a post of authority (you can just call me Madam Secretary from now on!) there was a significant amount of frustration expressed about some of the nastier aspects of being an allotment holder, so I thought I’d be honest about the trials and tribulations that were expressed at the meeting. In reverse order:

At number 3: The problem of people who won’t lock gates – this is a perennial problem at least as persistent as bindweed, and it leads to strangers wandering around the site and getting lost (and sometimes, getting locked in!) petty theft and vandalism and a general feeling of insecurity about leaving tools and produce on the allotment site.

At number 2 in the annoyance stakes – people who neglect their plots. We can all succumb to a bit of weediness or neglect at times, but this particular problem is related to people who wait until they get a weed notice, then turn up and strim and rotovate the entire plot, then do nothing until they get another weed notice … why do they have an allotment if they don’t do anything with it, is the cry from their neighbouring plot-holders? Why indeed?

Number one in the ‘allotment problem’ category – at least in the minds of those who came to the meeting – were dogs! It seems we have two large black dogs that are allowed to roam free on the site. Nobody present knew if they came from a nearby house or belonged to a plot-holder, but they have been galloping around one section of the site, trampling overwintering onions and causing mayhem. Bad enough, but the idea of coming across two large black dogs in the dark as you leave your plot in the evening is quite scary, and for some of our less mobile members could be really frightening.

We take our dog to the allotment, but always on a lead and when he’s there he’s secured on a running line on our plot so that he can’t annoy anybody. It’s really unpleasant to think that all the hard work people put into growing crops can be destroyed by one thoughtless person and two boisterous dogs – it’s not the dogs’ fault, of course. Just wait until we locate the owner – there will be some very honest expressions of annoyance to be heard!

I wonder what problems other allotment holders experience – anybody care to share their woes?

Labels: allotment-dogs, allotment-problems, allotment-vandalism, allotment-weeds

Never trust an allotment

If you turn your back on an allotment for ten minutes, this is what happens – weeds! It’s actually a little bit more than ten minutes, but not more than a week, since we were up weeding and digging, but I have to be honest, there’s been so much else to do, that we’ve sort of ‘ignored’ the bed down the bottom of the allotment that hasn’t been used this year. ‘It’s lying fallow,’ we told ourselves.

Well not any more it’s not! It was obvious when we got up there on Sunday that is was a potent source of vile annual and perennial weeds and just about ready to cast its ripe cargo of seeds in all directions, which wouldn’t make us popular with the neighbours. I also knew that letters had been sent out in the past couple of weeks to allotment holders who weren’t ‘keeping their plots in cultivation’ and while there was no threat of us being told we weren’t a busy and productive plot, I felt a sudden and terrible guilt that we weren’t pulling our weight after Duncan was good enough to take us on as co-workers. So we went and we dug!

I was reminded, while I dug, that in France, allotment holders in some areas are allowed to ‘rent’ a young person doing community service for a certain number of hours heavy digging. Wish we could do that here!

Labels: allotment-digging, allotment-fallow, allotment-weeds