Allotment - the Where, When, Why and How - Inter, Catch and Successional Cropping

TBandying these terms around when you are at the allotment will give everybody the impression that you really know your shallots from your onions! But apart from showing off, these three systems help you to get the best from your allotment.

Intercropping - this means growing a quick-maturing crop between the rows of a slower-growing one. This helps you economize on space and also gives you some fast products for the table while the slower ones are still maturing. As an example, you can set rows of salad between parsnips because the lettuces will be harvested long before the parsnips need to use that space. Other crops you can use for this purpose are beetroot, carrots and spinach - some people use radishes but if you go for them, you need to ensure you remember they are brassicas so if you're using crop rotation, you shouldn't intercrop them in a bed that's being rested from brassica. Try this with lettuce interplanted in celery or runner beans, spring onions between winter cabbage, and turnips and autumn cauliflower.

Catch cropping - is where you slid an extra quick-growing crop into the rotation. As an example, if you grew early harvesting potatoes in June, you can use their space to grow lettuce, spinach, carrots or turnips which will be harvested before winter. Broad beans and early peas are also harvestable in time to get another crop into the same ground before the end of the growing season.

Successional cropping - is vital to make sure that when you're sowing your crops, you don't get a glut. Instead of sowing a whole packet of lettuce in one go, sow a quarter, then another quarter three weeks later and so on. This means that your crop should be ready to harvest at intervals and is especially suited to the same crops as you've used for intercropping and catch cropping.

Rotational cropping allotment photograph author's own