OS gardening/allotmenteering - traditions, money saving and savvy ideas

Cappella

Over the past eight weeks Ive been helping MrC to reclaim our allotments. We have a full plot which is fully planted with semi-permanent soft fruit, apple and plum trees and herbs and a half plot which is our vegetable plot). Ill health on MrC's part had meant that the veg plot had become very overgrown but a determned effort had cleared most of it, and the winter digging has almost been finished. Anyway I was weeding out a thick knee high jungle of weeds, in order to dig over the last bed on the half plot today, and made an amazing discovery. Four rows of huge, perfectly good Apache potatoes that MrC had put in last spring and which we'd both forgotten all about. Apache isn't a variety of potato we've grown before but given the harvest I dug today we'll certainly be ordering them again next year.
Amazingly, given that it's November they were blight free with hardly any eelworm or slug damage. They are now safely sacked (3 sacks full) and stored ready to be eaten over the winter.
Such a lovely discovery On rather a grey, miserable day:)

nannygladys

Hi everyone, Ive had my plot for 3 years and Im still learning about gardening on it. The first year I just grew the usual beans, toms, potatoes etc. the second year I planted a fruit area and bought a smallish polytunnel as I couldn't afford a greenhouse and didn't know how to put one up, and this year I am more or less OK with the bed set (there was a lot of clearing in the first year as it hadn't been used for two years) up I have, so grew quite a bit but one thing I am learning is to decide what I want to grow so I can eat it!! the last two years I have grown quite a bit of stuff that I don't like and whats the use of that!!! I do try to do grow something completely different each year - this year I tried chickpeas and managed only about half a tins worth, so not even enough for a decent pot of humous, but I do have quite a lot of dried barlotti beans that Im not very keen on!! so I don't think I will trying them again next year.
I haven't been down there for a couple of weeks, but I know theres parsnips , celery, cabbage and a few other bits down there but I really need to carry on with clearing the areas I haven't managed to do yet. Im quite lucky as I can get plenty of leaves to make leaf mould (it takes a couple or so years Im told, but I have a couple of bins from the last two years and we have a regular supply of horse manure and chippings that are free to all plot holders. I hope I can learn and get some ideas from here, I used to ask fellow plot holders for advice but seemed to get conflicting information all the time so wasn't sure who advice to follow so its been trial and error and sometimes I feel its mostly error!!!
Nannyg

florain

Ask 6 people how to grow something and they will all have a different way of doing so! You have to work out what will work best for you from their 'advice'.
A good source of information and advice is - https://www.allotment.org .uk

Cappella

We swear by a very old copy of 'Your Garden Week by Week' by Arthur Helier. My dad gave a copy to us 40 years ago when we got our first allotment.
We're much further north than Mr. Helier though so were usually a fortnight behind him when planting.
There's a lot if conflicting advice online, we just stick to what works for us.
Today's allotment bounty was a bag full of leaf beet, a huge bunch of beetroot, three small heads of broccoli and a bouquet of bronze and dark red spray chrysanthemums. It makes all of the work and effort worthwhile

[Deleted User]

HWK is making great inroads into clearing our new allotment, we have 4 x new rhubarb roots planted on one of the short boundaries beside the shed, we have a row of autumn sown broad beans in too and some raspberry canes a little further down the plot where our fruit area will be that were donated by another plot holder who was thinning his row. HWK has also been given a compost bin which apparently was rescued from the local recycling area in the car park so I can start saving all the compostable veg and fruit peelings and other things that can go like the tea leaves in an outdoor container. Life adjusts and we're nearly back to normal routine which is very nice. I have some chopping up of removed bushes to do up there so I'll go with him one day this week and clear us a little more. 'S good!!!

fuddle

I had an inside one but as our kitchen is scraps are also needed for rabbit food we were slow to accumulate and I found fruit flies in the kitchen too often. An outdoor container would be ideal. Thanks for the idea because each time an eggshell or teabag inner enters the trash I recoil at the lost soil nutrients.

I have jobs I want to get on with on the plot today but I'm being sensible and staying indoors. I've had a weekend in cold damp weather and want to look after my chest.

My jobs are:

Take over rabbit litter for second growing space of bed 1.

Finish the retaining wall (wielding a mallet involved) for my fruit tree area.

Finish cutting down a dead conifer (some kind person before me thought it would be a good idea to plant one on a quarter plot!)

Use the remaining black plastic as a pond liner behind the stump, linking it to the little pond I have. I have two frogs and learned that frogs like to spawn in shallow water. If I can get puddles to form on the black plastic that might work.

To propgate bocking 14 comfrey I have via the root to have a small area growing around the pond liner puddle pond.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

My partner had a butternut squash riot in his garden this summer. If you don't mind the fact that they are encroaching, untidy plants with big leaves, they represent fantastic value for money in terms of seed outlay. From two seeds his plants yielded 8 massive beasts (average weight approx 3 kilos) from which you can get a lot of meals; soups, stews, chillis etc. Aside from watering, they are low maintenance and don't seem vulnerable to pests and disease.

fuddle

I failed with butternut squash up here. Cracking pumpkins, Jack be Little, Turks Turban, Festival and Spaghetti squash all did well but no butternut squash. Annoyingly it's our favourite squash as well.

Pooky

I only had 2 butternut squashes this year from 2 plants, and only one spaghetti squash. 5 decent sized pumpkins though. 3 left to eat but they're sat in the garage until we need them. We had a lot of courgettes and I've still got 2 freezer drawers full but we're coming to the end of the frozen chard and kale so will grab some more next time I pop along to the plot.

Fuds I wouldn't worry to much about the frogs needing shallow water, we've always had ponds and always had frogspawn, the spawn is more likely to get eaten by birds in a shallow area (and could be prone to drying out in warmer weather).

I put some peas in for a nice spring crop, we then had a week of glorious weather and they've shot up and started flowering and podding!! I fear last nights wind and sleety haily stuff won't have done them any good.

Cappella

This is the first year we've ever been really successful with butternut squash. I think we're too far north really for them but the heatwave earlier really did wonders for them. We have 5 huge ones stored in the front bedroom (storage space here is at a premium); and we have Turks turbans and and small pie pumpkins up there too.
The autumn broad beans have just been sown, we've never done very well with them but MrC swears by them as a green manure crop and I will dig them in if they don't survive. I'll plant our main crop broad beans in February if the weathers ok. They'll soon catch up.
MrC is going out to collect fallen leaves to fill the new leaf mould bins. The allotments back on to a football field which in turn slopes down to the river valley so it's a wonderful source of leaves this time of year, well away from the main roads. It's a brilliant resource and we're lucky to have it in a town.