2026 Allotmenteers - have we lost the plot?!

[Seaitoverthere]

A thread for those of us with new allotments to discuss progress and swap ideas. All welcome , established plot holders and wannabe plot holders too!

@blackheartsgirl
@hockityponktas

I was going to sow the peas direct, but people on my allotment said the mice and pigeons got all of theirs previously, and they didn’t get a single pea 😂 so I painstakingly raised tonnes and planted them out probably too early - well over a month ago. It’s a learning curve I guess!

Would you plant vine tomatoes outside? I’m south east, and have outdoor indeterminate vine tomatoes. Trying to figure out whether I can just put them outside or whether I need to buy a polytunnel structure. I’d start them off under a mini tunnel when planting out

Listen to your plot holders as they know the site. On mine apparently pigeons aren’t a problem but ducks are 😂 If you can find old guttering it is good for sowing peas in future, you then just slide the whole thing out and into a trench once they are big enough.

I’m not great at numbers unfortunately, I think I had 3 rows of perpetual spinach on old plot and that kept 2 adults and 2 teens in spinach . The bed was about 4 foot wide and it was good use of a shadier spot. If I had to guess I would say 12 plants. Hopefully someone better at numbers than me can comment.

Indeterminate tomatoes will need staking and they are the ones where you pinch out the side shoots so you will need to think about support. They will be ok without a Polytunnel structure once warm enough but covering them with something will help keep blight off for longer. It’s usually a race to get them ripened before blight hits with outdoor tomatoes but it will depend on what the weather is like.

Jessie at Plot 37 on YouTube built a great Polytunnel structure that might be good inspiration

Woohoo! A thread! We are on our third year but first year actually growing properly.

Our plot was a hellscape and it’s taken two years to clear and stabilise it!

All my seeds are in their propagators. Am really excited for this year!

@Seaitoverthere thanks so much. Yes I’m worried about blight outside, or not enough sun and heat for them to ripen before. I’ll build a support structure and string, someone left huge metal poles in my plot. I might fork out for a tunnel next year, see how it goes this year.

@Plotmentexciting!!

Super excited 😜

Have plans for cut garden. Will be trialling some new stipas.

Veg I want to focus on what we actually eat. So spring greens, courgettes, snap peas and runner beans.

All the salad bits, lettuce, rocket, spinach, chives, spring onions.

And I spend a small fortune on herbs so want to get a big stack of those.

A big thing in our plot is bind weed so we fallowed and turfed the last few years and dug trenches we filled with tagetes minuta. That has worked an absolute dream so am tempted to try some perennials but only those I can grow in lawn. So have sown artichokes, looking at blueberries (apparently grass increases their crop), and growing some flowers in lawn like strong running geraniums, iris sibirica and heliopsis.

And might be tempted to try strawberries in a bed but that might be a little premature.

@Plotmentblueberries were the plants we got berries on in the first year - not many but the kids went wild for them! Strawberry runners are cheap, so that could be an experiment. Have to say we had an awful garden on moving in with poor quality soil and full of weeds and the strawberries have self rooted all over despite this! I’ve got honey berries also, like blueberries, but no acidic soil needed. Has anyone grown saskatoons? I’m looking to buy some of those also.

I will have to look at the honey berries. I was thinking of the evergreen blueberries which apparently can take a higher ph.

Any recommendations on where to source strawberry runners

I got these everbearers a month ago, 24 runners for £14, they have actually all rooted and are flowering. Although I am pinching the first flowers out.

The summer raspberry longcanes (that will fruit this year) are half price for 10 canes - £20 https://www.yougarden.com/item-p-330018/raspberry-glen-ample-long-canes and they all have green leaves now.

I was a bit worried they’d be rubbish at that budget but they’re all doing well.

Blueberries and honey berries the best ones I got were from Roots. They’re much bigger and doing better than the other ones I bought elsewhere

https://www.yougarden.com/item-s-pa485/everbearer-strawberry-sweet-summer?Option=PA485

I got 9 raspberry canes for £9 from Thompson and Morgan. I have only just planted them and one was retrieved by the dog and replanted but they seem to be OK. All my other plants are golden raspberries which I like as they don’t need netting, as the birds don’t eat the berries until they turn red.

Ive never grown saskatoons but I’d also be interested to hear from anyone who has. I went last night and saw lots of little flowers on my jostaberry from last year which is exciting and I cut the first purple sprouting broccoli!

Any other plot holders you could ask? (Or any coming through a plot boundary that they would by you pinching?) We were kindly given some we got our plot last year. We also bought a neglected strawberry plant from b and q that was nearly dead for £1- it survived amd has covered half the strawberry bed!

@tealandtealahh I want yellow raspberries, I heard they’re sweeter? Ultimately though I just went with canes that would fruit this summer as I’m impatient, and the long canes were only available in red Glen Ample!

And yay for a purple sprouting broccoli harvest!!

Thank you!

Hello everybody!

Ive had my new plot about a week now and it does need quite a bit of work, the shed oh gosh. Its clearly had rats in there as I found a dead one and it’s full of droppings! That needs clearing and I’ll probably put chicken wire over the holes to stop the coming in

I haven’t been able to get down there the last couple of days as I’ve been to visit dd1 in Scotland, she’s had an op and she’s feeling quite rough

im going to go tomorrow and I’m planning on putting some spuds in. Can I put the seed spuds straight into the ground? I’m hoping they’ll grow as the soil has been under a groundsheet for a year and I’m guessing their isn’t much in the way of nutrients

Yes straight in the ground for the spuds. Dig a trench and as the leaves start to come through, cover them up with the soil from the sides of the trench.

Ah thanks I’ve done this today. Dug a small bed and put the spuds in, also created a path in front of the shed. Hopefully they will grow. I’ve got some more to put in in another bed.

I've sown some stocks, calendula, cosmos, corn marigold, and plan on planting nasturtiums. I love colour and companion planting themes, want to feed the pollinators, and just enjoy watching things grow.
I planted cornflowers, french marigolds and corn marigolds last year and had months of blooms from them.
None of my nigella, or poached egg plants germinated last year, so I'll try a different approach this year. I utterly failed with my peppermint too, which I'd intended to put in pots by the beds to keep rodents away. I was told you cant fail with mint.... I managed to.lol
My carrots were also less than inspiring, 5p for size comparison. ( the hamster enjoyed them)

@Sproutling aww they’re perfect hamster sized carrots 🥕 so cute! I just sowed a load of carrots in a bucket as my allotment has not great clay soil.

Has anyone got any tips for dealing with couch grass and weeds in awkward spots where it’s hard to dig out? I’ve got so much choking some fruit trees but can’t get under the tree to get rid of it. Would seeding wildflowers or chopping as much down as I can and mulching with bark work?

Its lovely when you start making little bits of progress isn’t it😊

My only success for getting rid of couch grass is to dig it up - I tried a thick weed fabric on one spot but the roots just travel towards the edge and up springs the next crop. We had/have loads on our plot and we spent the first year digging it out sytematically- still not finished. A rather grand rhubarb crown has couch grass entangled in its root, I'm at the stage of considering sacrificing it to get rid of that patch of couch grass.

The plot next door -separated by just a flag path- is very neglected and full of couch grass and creeping thistle.The roots are travelling under the path, so I spend hours digging roots from 'our' side of the path, and the spaces between the flags.

We've spoken to the plot holder, and offered to sort his plot for him- resounding 'no! its MY garden' was the response. Every crop he puts in gets strangled by his weeds- I dont think he harvested a single vegetable last year. He is an odd bod who has been there for 12-13 years, our neighbours say he's always been like this and no-one talks to him. Its very frustrating. He talks to us ok, though keeps calling us 'snobs' because we've tidied our plot and are always de-weeding.

Maybe chop it down as low as you can then cover round the tree with cardboard and then bark chippings?

Oh, and make sure you dispose of the roots off-site or burn them, they can re-generate easily in the poorest of conditions. Even fragments of root will turn into an new plant/crop. Oh I wish I wish that the plants I want to succeed were so vigorous!

Hi can I join please? We got our allotment a couple of years ago, did a bit last year and hoping to achieve more this year. I am giving at least half over to fruit, there was already a large raspberry patch and a few currant bushes. I have added rhubarb, a row of redcurrant cuttings, blueberry and gooseberry, and a patio apple and pear tree from lidl last year that have both survived the winter. We still have a fair amount covered as there are loads of weeds including couch grass and a lot of long rooted dock leaves. We are trying to get a lot out now while the ground is still wet. I did find it much easier to dig over and weed one of the beds that we have now been using for 2 years so there is progress.