Allotment owners- how big is yours, what do you grow and how much time does it take up?

[EauRouge]

I'd quite like to get one, mainly because I've run out of room in my garden to grow any more food. There are some available in my village and the rent is very low, I'm not sure how big they are though.

Mainly I'd like to grow things that I don't have the space for in my garden, like potatoes and various squashes. How much time do you dedicate to it? I think I'll need to sell the idea to DH so anything that will help persuade him (not that he'll need to do much, I'm the gardener of the house) would be very helpful. TIA!

Could you team up with friends/family? A family we know has a half plot - not sure how big but seems huge to me! They were struggling a bit, now I go once or twice a week with her, we have a good natter whilst we work, have a cuppa after, and i take a big of produce home.

Works well for us, I know a lot of people who have gone further and actually share one between them, ours is a bit more informal than that, iyswim.

I share one with a friend. It's big, 7 poles - no idea in meters!

We have half each. I spend approx. 8 hours a week on my part. It's needs lots of weeding in the spring but now the plants are bigger it needs much less so I tend to go just to collect my produce. The hot weather with showers have been great as things are growing well and I don't need to water!

if its too big you could ask for them to split it and you have a quarter. though don't forget that things like strawberry's and raspberries don't take much work but use a lot of space.

there may be rules about sharing that you need to be aware of ref your plot

Thanks all. I had a word with my neighbour who has an allotment and he gave me a rough idea of how big they are (chuffing massive) but said that he thought there were some half-plots available. Anyway, I've got the phone number so I can ring the allotment people to chat.

I've got loads of strawbs in my garden already, they spread like mad so could easily move some up to the allotment. I've just got some raspberry canes too but no fruit this year.

I was looking at my garden today thinking that if I didn't have such a big pumpkin/squash patch I could make the lawn a bit bigger and we wouldn't have to crab-shuffle around the trampoline. So I will sell the idea of an allotment to DH by pointing this out, I don't see how he can say no

Thank you all for your help!

Even though my allotment is big half of it is covered with fruit bushes which means it's quite easy to maintain. You may be lucky and find you have similar!

That's true, I'd forgotten that there might be freebies. Not sure how to go about building a fruit cage but there are so many birds up there that any fruit or brassicas are going to need something.