While I’m a firm believer in living life today, here and now, I think it can be a healthy excersise to stop for a minute and look back at what you have achieved.

It gives you chance to celebrate your victories, learn from your mistakes, and more importantly plan what steps you want to take in the future.

This morning I have spent a bit of time looking at this site - and reflect on where it has come from - while trying to think of where I would like to take it.

Let me just say that I’m proud to be the owner of this site! I put it online in february this year - and considering the effort I have put into the site - it has performed very well indeed. It has consistently more than doubled its number of visitors every month, to about 300 unique visitors this month, and this is without doing any marketing at all what so ever.

I’m not going to rest on the laurels though. As long as there are allotment plotholders out there, with internet access, who doesn’t know about the site, there’s a job to do

Also - I would like to interact more with you - my visitors. While the site is mostly build around what is happening on my own plot, and me sharing things I’ve learnt in my short career as an allotmenteer, there’s so much more happening on plots across the country.

My intention is to build an online community for allotment plotholders, and people with similar interest, which means I would like to hear from you and have you sharing your experiences and points of view with other users of the site. The site already offers this functionality - and if you would like to take part - why not register and post a comment to this post and/or another post where you feel I’m missing something? Also - I’m open to any ideas as to how you think I can improve the site - just leave a comment.

Technorati Tags: Allotment, Allotmenteer, Community

What a week! Back into the daily grind? You bet! As you might guess, being a gardener, this time of the year is quite busy for me on and off the plot - yet I managed to get a good bit done. Not as much as I wanted to - but then - is that ever going to happen?

Started my saturday digging! I had the equivalent of 40 binbags of grass-cuttings - from the previous day in work - that I didn’t manage to get to the skip in time before they closed. Ah well - it will do for not having any other manure on the site until the end of the coming week.

I’m nowhere near done digging my plot over, like I intended to do, but I think I have enough space to put in the plants that I’m growing this year.

Once the digging was done, I went to see my college tutor, and check on the progress of the plants that I have growing in their greenhouse. They are coming on very nicely! The marrows and the sweetcorn has now been moved from the greenhouses to a polytunnel for hardening off, and should be ready for planting out in a weeks time.

I then moved my wormery from my back garden to my allotment. The main reason for this is that my son and his mates have a very hard time leaving the worms alone (!) - and then I have a wast amount of food for them on my plot anyway. Or so I thought! I found out that a lot of the bags of leaves that I gathered last year - and was hoping to use for worm composting this summer - has been home to lots of slugs and snails! They are now being dug in!

All in all a quite busy day - so today sunday I’m going to rest - and stay away from the plot! Should be interesting to see how I’ll manage….

Technorati Tags: Allotment, Digging, Wormery

Our little family break is over - time to get stuck in with the daily routine again - until I go away for another holiday in 3 weeks

You could be forgiven for thinking that I’m doing nothing but going on holiday. I wish! But then life would get boring - and my plot would end up overgrown! We can’t have that now - can we?

Well - as you would expect - things has kept on happening in spite of me being away. First thing is - the last bit of plants I ordered from Dobies (my soft fruit bushes) had arrived. Great! Although I’ve known for the bestpart of a month that they would arrive sooner or later, I’ve been to busy to really prepare for them, so they are now temporarily planted in one corner of my plot.

Back on my plot yesterday afternoon - and delighted to see that I’ve had a new neighbour! Last year his plot was completely overgrown with thistles that shed truckloads of seeds on my plot. Not this year they won’t! Had a small chat over the fence - welcoming him on site. He’s a great guy! A good bit of his plot is cleared and dug over already, though he’s only been on for just over a week, and it looks great. He’s trying to do things organically as well.

While we’re still waiting for some more manure to be delivered to our site, I had a chance to do some more clearing up. Finished clearing a space behind my derelict greenhouse, where the former plotholder put down some timber that has played host to more than a few bugs, slugs and snails. Not anymore!

A well I managed to start preparing seedbeds in the soil I’ve dug over in winter. First impression - my hard work has paid off! I hope I’ll have the crops to prove that later in the year as well.

All in all a good and productive afternoon on my plot. Hopefully I’ll get quite a few more of them in the next few weeks!

Technorati Tags: Holiday, Dobies, Allotment

Wow - the past week has passed by at a 100 mph - and I’ve been ridiculously busy, so there has been no time to make updates here on allotmenteer.co.uk.

First of all things are starting to get busy in my job as a gardener - since everything starts growing now - and demand for our services increase dramatically. Side effect - not much time for my plot either!

Secondly I’ve been down with a bug yesterday, saturday, which is normally the day I get to spend getting things done on my plot. This means that there’s not that much to report really!

Sunday morning - and I found a bit of time to pass on a few bits and pieces anyway .

On thursday I was back in college and had a look at the plants I’ve got going in their greenhouses. I’m absolutely amazed at how fast they have grown. Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures - but the sweetcorn that I planted 2 weeks ago is now 10cm tall and are beginning to set their first set of leaves. Also the marrows are doing quite nicely. Only just breaking through the soil last week - they’re now small plug-plants - ready to be hardened off and planted out on my plot next weekend!

Yesterday I took my son to the allotment just for him to see the progress of his sunflowers that we planted a couple of weeks ago, and to give all the plants up there a good watering. He has got 40+ Russian Giant well on their way - ready to be planted out next week as well I think. We’ll than plant some more of his seeds - to get a succession of flowers.

The following week I’ll be away on a family holiday - so nothing new will be posted until saturday. Should be good to spend a bit of time relaxing, while meeting loads of new people and having fun with the family.

Technorati Tags: Holiday, Sunflower, Allotment

Remember me telling about buying a wormery about 6 weeks ago? If that’s not the case - have a look here!

I thought I would take some time to update you on how things are with my wormery, to give you an idea whether getting your own would be an idea or not.

First of all - I love the idea of cutting down on the amount of waste that goes into landfill from UK households - and I’m trying to do my bit to ensure that it happens. From that point of view every household should have a wormery.

Secondly, for the gardener, providing good food for your plants is very important. Well - you’ll struggle to buy better plant food than natures own thing - it’s been proven for thousands of years!

So how much work is involved with having a wormery? Next to none! The worms are quite happy to look after themselves, and munch away at the rubbish you throw at them. They will eat quite a big variety of it as well.

The worms that comes with most wormeries are Dendrobaena worms. They should be able to eat up to half their bodyweight every day in waste. So far my worms have eaten nowhere near that amount - but I recon it’s just a matter of the temperature going up a bit.

When turning over the compost, something you should do 2-3 times a month, I’ve noticed a few baby worms and several worm cocoons. In other words - my worms are busy reproducing - which is a good sign they are quite happy where they are.

Overall - I would definately recommend any allotmenteer to start a wormery of their own. It’s relatively cheap - it’s very easy - it will provide the best compost money can buy - and taking out the rubbish will be more fun .

Technorati Tags: Wormery, Worms, Compost

With the easter weekend being two days longer than what a normal weekend would be, I’ve been fortunate enough to spend a good bit of time on my allotment, and best of all I have something to show for it!

I nearly finished digging the half of my plot I have been working on for far too long - only we ran out of manure on the site - so from now on I’m back to picking more up from the riding school myself, until they can deliver a new load. Should be in a weeks time or so.

On thursday - on my way back from work - I did something I’ve been planning for some time. I went to a local garage - and asked them did they have an empty oil barrel. They were more than happy to give me one. Saves them getting rid of it I suppose!

I got my grinder out - took the lid off it - and made a couple of holes (10cmx10cm) in the bottom third. Woopie Doo! I got myself a rubbish burner for free by adding just over an hours work. In my opinion no allotment site should be without a couple of these - and my plot has certainly benefited from it.

As well - I got my seed potatoes put out in trays for chitting. A bit late I know - at least for the early varieties - but then I’ve only got a few of them from a “starter pack” I decided to order with my seeds, just to try them out. My maincrop potatoes this year will be Maris Piper and King Edward. I love them for making excellent chips and roast potates.

All in all a very productive weekend. I could do with another 5 of them

Technorati Tags: Allotment, Easter, Potatoes

Last weekend I decided to start introducing my little 3-year old to the allotmenteer lifestyle, and brought him for an afternoon to my plot.

We had a great time! It’s funny just to see him toddle around, doing his own thing, and enjoying himself. I would like him to “take ownership” of something on the plot this year - and maybe make a tradition out of it - so before going to th plot we went to a garden center and bought him a few packs of sunflower seeds.

Before I knew it we had enough seeds to plant well over 100 plants - but I think I might just let him - for the fun of it more than anything! I won’t be able to use the full plot anyway .

The laugh of the day I had when he came up to me and asked me for a seed. I gave him one! He went somewhere on the plot and dug it in with his little trowel, came back up to me saying: “Daddy! It hasn’t growed yet!” You’ve got to love them!

Technorati Tags: Allotment, seeds, Sunflower

Remember I told about planting my first seeds while going to college on thursday last week?

On thursday this week I went back to do coursework again - and was rather surprised to see that the vast majority of my sweetcorn had sprouted, as can be seen on the top picture to the right (click for full image).

Also, the marrows and the butternut squashes was starting to peek through the soil, as shown on the bottom picture.

I find it quite amazing that things has happened so fast. Goes to show what benefits can be had of a heated greenhouse.

I wouldn’t mind one of them myself .

Technorati Tags: Allotment, Greenhouse, Marrows, Sweetcorn

To maintain a healty soil structure, and cater for the different crops’ wants and needs, it is important not to grow the same crop in the same spot year after year.

If you do you’re likely to experience two basic problems:

1. Soil-living pests and diseases that thrive on the crop grown will increase steadily, and could reach epidemic proportions.
2. The nutrients contained in the soil will become unbalanced, and the crop will perform badly.

The answer to these two problems, and the reason for dividing the crops into plant-families, is called crop rotation.

Once you have identified where on your plot you’re going to grow your vegetables (excluding areas used for permanent crops), divide your plot into sections (3-5 according to the number of plant families you have).

In your first year of growing (based on 3 plant families), grow plant family 1 in section 1, plant family 2 in section 2 and plant family 3 in section 3.

In your second year of growing, grow plant family 3 in section 1, plant family 1 in section 2 and plant family 2 in section 3.

In the third year of growing, grow plant family 2 in section 1, plant family 3 in section 2 and plant family 1 in section 3.

The fourth year is a repeat of year 1 - and so on….

The same system applies for any other number of plant families used.

For those unable - or unwilling - to practice crop rotation, the rule of thumb is to grow a root crop in one place one year - and then an “above ground” crop the next year - then back to a root crop again.

If a crop under-performs in one spot one year - it should never be followed by a crop from the same plant family the following year.

Sticking to these simple rules will ensure that you’ll be more successful in growing your crops year after year.

Technorati Tags: Allotment, Plant families, Crop Rotation

When planning your plot, after deciding what crops you’re going to grow, it’s time to divide the seeds into groups, according to the “family” they belong to.

Traditionally a vegetable plot would be divided into 3 sections, hence 3 plant families, but over the recent years another family has been added for those with plots big enough (most allotment plots will be). On top of that there’s an option to have a fifth section on the go - set out for resting the soil - or growing green manure.

The traditional 3 plant families

If your plot is rather small - or you use only parts of it for vegetable growing - it would be adviceable to go with the traditional 3 family plan. In this plan the crop is divided into the following groups:

1. Roots, Beetroot, Carrot, Chicory, Jerusalem Artichoke, Parsnip, Potato, Salsify and Scorzonera
2. Brassicas, Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Kale, Kohl Rabi, Radish, Swede and Turnip
3. Others, Aubergine, Bean, Capsicum, Celeriac, Celery, Cucumber, Leek, Lettuce, Marrow, Onion, Pea, Spinach, Sweet Corn and Tomato.

Each plant family has different needs - and the soil where you plan to grow them should be treated differently. In the following, manuring means adding manure to the top soil, and italics indicates an must have need.

1. Roots. Do not add manure. Do not lime. Rake in a general purpose fertilizer about 2 weeks before sowing or planting.
2. Brassicas. Add some manure or compost, partucularly to soil short of humus. Lime the soil, unless you are sure it’s already alkaline. Rake in a general purpose fertilizer about 2 weeks before sowing or planting.
3. Others. Add a liberal amount of manure or compost. Lime - but only if the soil is known to be acid. Rake in a general purpose fertilizer about 2 weeks before sowing or planting.

The 4-family system

Recently some gardeners organisations have started implementing and recommending a 4-family system. In this system, potatoes and other plants from the night shadow family of plants, and plants requiring similar treatment has been moved out into their own group.

The groups now look like this:

1. Potatoes, Courgettes, Marrow, Peppers, Pumpkins and Tomatoes.
2. Legumes, Beans, Peas and Green manure.
3. Brassicas, Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Kale, Kohl Rabi, Radish, Swede and Turnip
4. Roots and Onions, Beetroot, Parsnips, Carrots, Onions, Shallots, Garlic and Leeks

The recommended soil preparation for the 4 groups looks like this:

1. Potatoes. Add manure or compost. Do not lime. Rake in a general fertilizer about 2 weeks before sowing or planting.
2. Legumes. Add a liberal amount of manure or compost. Lime - but only if the soil is known to be acid. Rake in a general purpose fertilizer about 2 weeks before sowing or planting
3. Brassicas. Add some manure or compost, partucularly to soil short of humus. Lime the soil, unless you are sure it’s already alkaline. Rake in a general purpose fertilizer about 2 weeks before sowing or planting.
4. Roots and onions. Do not add manure. Do not lime. Rake in a general purpose fertilizer about 2 weeks before sowing or planting.

Technorati Tags: Allotment, Plant families, Manure