so..... we've got an allotment....

[davidtennantsmistress]

YAY! with a small shed & green house,

DP & I are in the process of trying to clear it (is a real state) and intend on hiring a strimmer & mower to get things done quicker, thus far we're digging over by hand, can I use a small cultivator on it?

dp seems to think that it's about 20M long, (it's HUGE! lol) going to be working it with my dad, who's quite garden savvy, dp's dad is also v garden savvy and grows all his own veg,

anyhow we're not planning on getting anything planted until next spring, but is there anything we could put in our green house? what sorts of things are easy to grow?

we have 3 compost bins which go the width of the allotment (prob about 6meters ish) I think, what do we need to put in it other than household peels etc, the chap who runs the allotments said about sea weed, (we live & the allotments are right on the shore line)

help!

A cultivator/rotovator can be a mixed blessing. If there are perennials weeds such as couch grass, you could end up spreading the bits of chopped/up root even further across the plot.

I'd be wary too of leaving the plot uncultivated. Firstly, because that's probably in breach of plot rules and you'll be expected to get the plot quickly into cultivation. Secondly, because weeds will take hold. If you haven't got time to do much now, get out all the weeds and grit and Dow a green manure - such as phacelia - that you can dig in in the spring to improve the soil.

Allotments are great but exhausting. Happy growing!

Sorry. Didn't answer your actual question!

In the greenhouse now you could grow salad and winter veg. You could grow some new potatoes on pots for Christmas. What else you grow really depends on what you like - don't waste effort on stuff you don't like or that's cheap to buy in shops. I want to put artichokes on our plot, as they are easy to grow but expensive to buy.

DT'smistress I wonder if you'd like to be my novice alltmenteer buddy? We have one, got it in March, have done some stuff on it but finding it very hard going during this awful summer plus not much time!

I think if you make a good show of cultivating something, you will be fine - our allotment association wouldn't expect you to turn a full plot round in one season, they want to see you making a stab at it. Plus now is a good time to really prepare your earth for next year?

Have you had a word with anyone on your committee about their views on how long it would take to get your patch sorted? This could give you a steer.

Some one rotavated our patch for us, we were not happy really, DH had been ill so we had fallen behind and they did that, has caused no end of problems. So be very wary of that.

thanks I was wondering about hiring a cultivator it's £50 for a day, to me it seems workable, but are they good - I found a load more weeds on the patch we dug over on sunday, am currently about 1/4 of the way digging it over, I explained to the caretaker chap that with DP away atm, and dad also away till fri just me with 2 kids will be slow but bear with me as I really want to do it, so hopefully he'll see there's been some small amount of progress.

little blue yes please i'd like that, just been down there now for another 1.5 hours, it's sooo slow but so rewarding to see my little bit of progress.

the caretaker chap was lovely, & said he's not expecting anything this year as long as I can get it ready to sow for March & it's tidy/the other holders see us there working on it & making some progress. so hopefully that's a good sign, plus he siad he'd only charge us from january as we wouldn't be able to do anything with it until then.

ref growing things, we thought the obvious, carrotts spuds, onions, peas cabbage, lettice, toms cuecumber, peppers. not sure about anything extravagant atm to start with. very excited, can't wait until it's all sorted dug over & we can pop down for an hour or two a week to keep on top of things yeah as if lol.

oh sorry weeds wise, there's er long tall ones and seeded one lol. they're perinal ones I think, lots and lots of binde weed under everything and prickly horrid weeds on the rest.

apparently it's no good for the compost pot if that helps?

Oh, I'm glad they were encouraging, that's basically what was said to us too. This year we got ours in March, which is not a good time really because we had such a short amount of time to get bits dug before plants had to go in.

I have found it incredibly stressful at times, DH got tonsillitis in April and was unable to do anything for a good four weeks, just at the time we wanted to get digging.

I would second the advice about growing things you actually want - I won't do onions again because I find them so dull and they are so cheap to buy anyway. I have been very pleased with our large courgette and squash patch, it has covered a sixth of the allotment with weed fabric and looks productive but needs little maintenance and is very productive.

Next year we are thinking of doing lots of rasps and other berries, to cover ground but not need too much maintenance.

yes I'd like to do rasp and strawberries (mostly DS wants those, dp isn't keep on growing fruit thou, but we've promised the kids a little mud patch to theirselves for experimenting their own grops so we'll see

glad your team is also supportive, so far ours seems very friendly, and i've been very surprised by the amount of women & younger people there. Am dreading if DP goes away for a couple of weeks next spring, as i'll be trying to sow everything pretty much alone, good olde dad thou hopefully lol.

Yes to the seaweed.

If you've got bindweed then I would steer clear of the cultivator - it will chop up all the bindweed roots and you only need a couple of millimetres of root to create a new plant.

My advice is to get rid of the weeds over winter and be ready for sowing from march/April onwards.

Don't plan to anything with your April weekends apart from the allotment as its peak sowing season, you don't want to still be digging then as you'll quickly get behind.

I keep doing things like taking exams, writing essays, standing in council elections and having babies in April and it doesn't help my allotment at all!

When you've dug over where you plan to put your spuds, cover it with manure and then dig the trenches ahead of time so that come April you only have to pop in the chaited spuds and cover them up.

You can prepare some ground now for panting autumn sowuing broad beans - they're ar less prone to black fly if you plant them before Christmas ( you need to make sure you buy seeds for autumn not spring sowing).

You can also plant autumn onion and garlic sets!

Good luck!

driftwood - how do you make it exactly?

thanks for the tips on the bindweed, we have it in a bundance, dad came down today & is also excited about doing it with us, he's even talking about once it's up together getting his own plot - i'm not so keen on this, as I have no clue so need his guidance.