Keeping an allotment??

Lydia42

Hi
Looking for a little advice whilst i start to read up on the mse forums and start culling our huge over-spending habits.

I currently have an allotment (half plot). This is paid for until end of Dec 2018. We didn't manage to get up there much last year due to other commitments and illness. Things are different now as i have reduced my working hours so can get up there for at least a few hours every week.

Do i keep the allotment? Will it help me go old style and reduce my monthly food spending etc, or is it likely to cost me lots for seeds and plants and time? I have a shed and tools, so no outlay there, but other than two rhubarb plants and a loganberry bush the plot is overgrown and has nothing else on it.

I've got some tarps in the garage which if i decide to keep the plot and work it i will cover half of it while i start to dig the beds over as it's quite overwhelming to see the size of it all.

Thanks

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

If you enjoy it, keep it for the year.

You don't have to go mad with fancy plants - prioritise what you eat most of and what you would love to eat but can't justify the cost of.

Potatoes are reliable croppers, onions are easy - but both are very cheap to buy. Carrots and cabbages are easy but vulnerable to pests unless you spend a little on netting.

However, soft fruit is extremely expensive - raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, red/white/blackcurrants, strawberries - and with the exception of strawberries, are practically bombproof in terms of growing success. Chard is pricey to buy, as are Jerusalem artichokes, but cheap to plant and grow..

If you like squashes/pumpkins/marrows/courgettes, they're very easy to grow, as are beans and peas.

Herbs are also expensive but invaluable in making cheap meals taste different. The seeds are much cheaper. And whilst tomatoes are generally cheap, if you get a good cropper, the returns in terms of flavour make them far more affordable.

You could look at some of the gardening magazines - some come with packets of seeds that will cover a lot of your needs for about a fiver.


You can use toilet roll inners to sow seeds, make pots out of damp newspaper and many things can be made from scrap wood and a few screws, You#ll also be likely to have access to good compost onsite.

I'd love a plot - and reduced hours to be able to go to one - and the community can mean you get lots of stuff for free or cheap that you haven't grown - a friend trades her excess throughout summer and gets things like free honey, another had free help to build an access path for his powered wheelchair in exchange for some soft fruit later in the year.

Even if you don't actually save money, it could improve your life vastly just being there, anyway - everybody needs somewhere they can escape to - take a flask of coffee, sandwiches and a radio and you could have a lovely afternoon in the sunshine (or in the shed if it's raining) with just you, the birds, bumblebees and some beautiful, fresh fruit and veg for tea.

[Deleted User]

If you keep the allotment, to make it productive and help supply your food you need to set aside time to work it right through the year and not just a once a week trip. We've had allotments for over 40 years and at this time of year there's not much to do but in the planting and growing season it needs daily attention and in harvest season it's not just the picking and general maintenance of weeding, watering etc. it's the processing the crop you've grown too be it for the freezer, preserves, jam etc. We eat well because of the work we put in, if you don't have the time or inclination to put in the hours then paying an allotment fee is not a sensible use of your cash.

Brambling

Hi Lydia
I gave my allotment up about 5 years ago after several years I agree it can take up a lot of time especially if it!!!8217;s a dry summer. I!!!8217;m not sure if we saved a lot of money but you certainly cannot beat the taste of food picked and eaten within a couple of hours.

It doesn!!!8217;t need to be expensive and seeds are far cheaper than buying plants in a garden center and we found seeds from places like Wilkos are just as good as expensive seed companies and they often do 3 for 2. Can you share packs of seeds with someone? Our allotment had a shop where you could swap seeds or young plants and this time of year on local social media sites there are seed swap meets around the town.

Hope this helps

Linda32

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

Even if you don't actually save money, it could improve your life vastly just being there, anyway - everybody needs somewhere they can escape to - take a flask of coffee, sandwiches and a radio and you could have a lovely afternoon in the sunshine (or in the shed if it's raining) with just you, the birds, bumblebees and some beautiful, fresh fruit and veg for tea.

This, this, this. :T

Gardening is good mental and physical health. It isn't just about saving money.
Have a think about what you actually spend money on fruit and veg wise. That is what you want to be thinking about buying.

Cost wise, yes if you want fruit bushes these will have to be bought at first, but not in the second, third, fourth year, after that they are free. It would be rare for seeds to actually cost more than the crop. Have a look at the cost of supermarkets finest ranges not basic because that is what you are getting with grow your own.

Go for it and if you have paid until the end of the year and don't do anything, then yes, it has cost you money

Floss

We started with 3/5 of a full plot but now have it all. We're quite lucky in that there are established gruit trees & bushes plus 2 greenhouses.

Our staples are early & main crop potatoes (£3-5 for dozens of new spuds & a large bag of stored ones for autumn & winter), onions (£1.50 for 50 sets - you can't buy the excellent tast of a really fresh onion for that). These are also relatively self sufficient - weeding & watering until one harvest time. I also grow french beans for fresh & frozen (don't like runners, but they too crop amazingly well) and purple sprouting broccoli over the winter, which gives a fab iron boost and is a "gives good value" crop. We're hoping for a decent asparagus crop this year - takes 3 years but worth the time, it tastes so good minutes out of the soil.

fuddle

Seeds don't have to be expensive. I am getting mine from premier seeds direct. The price is around 69-99p per packet and the amount you get isn't shabby either.

I have a spent a lot on compost and rotted manure and although I am just starting out I believe It will be the same every winter. Will we even break even? I don't know but if I can grow my own and feed my family nutrient rich vegetables then I'd rather that than pay for overproduced, nutrient deficient, chemically fed supermarket offerings.

Plus I like allotment. I think my mental health would be in a worse state this winter had I not had the plot. All hail the allotment pondering bench.

thriftwizard

I'd go for it; having lost my plot in a numbering mix-up a few years back, I was thrilled to be offered one on a new site in our town last June, and was gobsmacked by how much we managed to grow in that short summer. We're still eating lovely fresh, tasty carrots, kale & leeks from it now. We did throw a small amount of money at it in terms of seedlings raised by other people - late June being somewhat late to start things off! - but managed to acquire a free shed from Gumtree and lots of old but excellent tools from our local Tip. (Which had the added bonus that when everyone else's padlocks were bolt-cutter'd open & their brand-new power tools sadly got nicked, our tatty-but-adequate little shed with a rusty bolt but no lock was left alone.)

£land have, or have had, plenty of £1 blackcurrant & gooseberry bushes, but they're also dead easy to grow from cuttings or even prunings; just pop a few twigs in the ground in autumn or spring & about 90% of them will grow into a new bush. If your site has, or belongs to, an Allotment Association, many of the seed companies offer good discounts to members, but there's nothing wrong with L!dl's seeds & they're generally very inexpensive.

Round here, manure can be sourced for the price of the fuel I use to go & pick it up, as we're surrounded by "equestrian" land, which can be found on the outskirts of most big towns & cities. I just have to leave an empty bag for each full one I cart away, and let it rot down for at least a year in one of our pallet composters - pallets being free to collect from the Tip or the surrounding industrial estate, and the whole thing tied together with bent metal coathangers, also free from the Tip.

I'm the one with some free time, and will be up there several times a week as soon as it warms up a bit, but OH treasures his weekend mornings up there; he's quite a solitary soul usually, but has made friends with some of the old boys up there, and he loves to watch the wildlife in the water-meadows around our plot. Our shed has developed all kinds of bug-boxes & bird feeders & he's managed to convince some of the other plot-holders that birds are not necessarily a bad thing! So yes, it does take up some time, but that's not necessarily wasted time.

And I'm in total agreement with the others that you simply can't beat gardening - and eating your own good fresh produce - for mental & physical health. I think you have a resource there that fulfills much more than one need, and that's what being Old-Style is really all about.

[Deleted User]

It isn`t just the organic veg that I grow, I can buy organic veg but cannot buy many organic berries, which are so essential for good health. My small plot (100 x 10 feet) provides more than enough fruit for the whole year. It also provides flowers all summer and it makes me go out into the fresh air. I just plop myself on a kneeler and hand weed my raised beds or I hoe under the apple trees. Having an allotment is worth every single penny

carolbee

we have two half allotments. If you can try to keep it until December I’d do so. You can’t beat the taste of a home grown carrot!

phizzimum

My DH has an allotment and in my experience people with greenhouses will get carried away and plant far too many seeds. This means by late spring/early summer they have lots of spare plants ready to go into the ground that they are desperate for someone to take off their hands. That’s what DH does anyway! It breaks his heart to chuck them on the compost heap

So if I was you I’d be chatty and friendly and ask people for advice. Im sure they’ll be someone who will be delighted to give you their surplus seeds and plants