New allotments Autumn 2010 Chat

loucroft

kerrirobberts wrote: »

I've just started on an allotment, never done any gardening before. I've just ordered some red onions sets and garlic to hopefully go in this weekend.

Fab! Good luck

Can I ask if your garlic sets were cheap, I use the supermarket ones?

kerrirobberts

I have no idea how much supermarket ones are for reference, but my order was as follows:
onions (electric) 50 sets £1.99
garlic (solent wight) 3 bulbs £6 (or you could order one bulb for £2.99)
p+p 2.99 (flat rate for bulbs)

I did it through TCB to get 12.12% back

foxybabe

Woohoo we've got an allotment. I'll probably be asking loads of questions and advice.

loucroft

foxybabe wrote: »

Woohoo we've got an allotment. I'll probably be asking loads of questions and advice.

yippee!

welldone, let us know how you get on, it's a really great thing to do

dogstarheaven

foxybabe wrote: »

Woohoo we've got an allotment. I'll probably be asking loads of questions and advice.

how's it going on your lotti? my main piece of advice to you is:

Little, and Often... i can't stress that enough. when we took over ours in Feb, we got the topgrowth down and started on making our beds. although i knew about starting small and in one patch only, i went against this principle and the beds were big and all other the lotti. over the course of the growing season, we've had difficulties keeping the weeds down on some of the beds, tho' we did mulch the others, and so we ended up watering twice a week. we've had great gluts/successes with most of the veg, namely courgette/squashes/beans/little gem/mustard greens/comfrey/shark's fin melon/onions. what i didn't do so well with is my spring sown bed with the beetroot/radish/carrots/spring onion. the main culprit probably was the fact that i hadn't turned it enough to weed it thoroughly. the other beds were turned/weeded 3x before anything got planted.

i've longed for the dormant season to arrive as i felt quite overwhelmed with the amount of work i had to do with the lotti this summer. sometimes, i didn't do much other than to water and harvest. other days, a little bit of weeding, tho' not as much as i could of. did any of you guys feel the guilt? being at work f/t was really hard esp. when your job's physically taxing like mine was (no longer in it, now desk job for me!)

last time i when i did some work was on sunday to dig over the hotbed that housed the tomatoes which is the bed in the corner SE facing by the shed. it was quite satisfying really, altho' my back ached for the first time since the last time i did a bit of heavy digging... i loved seeing how the bed looked when i raked and tilled it finely (do you marvel how your clean and tidy beds look too, or am i alone in this oddity???)

i'll be going down this w/e and start the whole digging process on the Three Sisters Bed where the curcubits//sweetcorn will come out leaving the Oca to finish growing in Nov.

other veg that's left to grow:

kale all yr round, so more than enough to feed my street!
cabbages
purple srouting
jerusalem artichokes

need to put in my garlic too. they were meant to go in after the potatoes, but i had too many leeks to plant out.

has anyone got any updates about their lottis?

foxybabe

Its going well, we have had a bit of clearing to do and the shed to sort out but we have put some onions and garlic in. The other allotment holders have made us very welcome and have given us loads of advice. I think we are just going to get it ready for next spring now with a 'plan' in mind.

foxybabe

Do you recommend Manure or dried pellets as fertilizer?

dogstarheaven

manure is best to add to unfertilised ground. we haven't used animal manure on ours as it costs too much and it's too impractical to transport as we don't have a car so we use a 'green manure' like phacelia/rye/tares it's good for the insects and it's easier to maintain. just scatter and rake and that's all you need to do, whereas animal manure you'll have to dig it in which i'd say is a whole lot harder!

dried chicken manure pellets is a feed that is used for plants that you'd want to grow and thrive (as opposed to the manure that's good for the soil) so that's only applied a few weeks before, or during planting.

foxybabe

Thanks, We have unlimited free horse manure as the stables is just at the back of the allotments. The farmer just piles it up for us to use. Its not a very pleasant job though!!! :rotfl::rotfl:

dogstarheaven

that's great you have an unlimited supply. if only we can get that ourselves as it really does conditions the soil no end. just make sure you get it well-rotted before you dig it in.