Just been offered allotment help lol!!

[Brum]

Hello all
Been on the waiting list less than a month and been offered allotment!!
Never done this before lol
Starting tomorrow
It�s not to bad forgot to take a photo today as to excited
I know it�s going to be hard work and been advised do things a section at a time
But what do I do first
Advice greatly received!!
Thanks in advance

[mcdood]

Hi Brum, Congratulations and enjoy it. You say you're new to an allotment but let us know if you have gardening experience as that will help with advice. What do you fancy growing?

[nickdub]

I'd say first priority is to make friends with your neighbours - if they know you are new to this, then this is a good time of year for people to pass on spare plants and anyone who has gardened there for a while will have valuable advice.

[benb89]

Im new to this as well, but if I have one bit of advise it would be take your time, dont try and tackle everything at once otherwise it can be overwhelming. Good luck and enjoy

[Jay-ell]

Congratulations Brum and welcome to the vine.

Have a wander around the plot to see what's there - you might have soft fruit bushes, rhubarb, perennial herbs, raised beds, greenhouse, etc.

Once you hit 10 posts you will be able to upload photos straight to the vine, so any questions fire away to get your post count up.

If you can strim the weeds down and cover everything you're not working on at the minute that can help you alot - stuff like thick layers of newspaper or cardboard will exclude light and eventually break down. Thick black plastic also excludes the light but you have to remember to lift it before soil builds up on top of it (which can happen faster than you think). Tarpaulins can work short term. The important thing is to exclude the light ang stop the weeds growing through.

Once that's done you can tackle small sections of the plot at a time. You never have the entire plot to dig, you only ever have that section/strip/bed in front of you - that way you can focus on what you have done and not what's left.

You can plant an area as soon as its been cleared - you then have something growing and not just bare ground. You can start things off now in pots and modules on the window sill or buy trays from a garden centre.

This time of year you can still plant spuds and even onion sets(although they may not achieve full size it might be worth the bragging rights to make a string of onions later on in the year). These are both in the groundffor a while and are amongst the first things to go in earlier in the year.

Bags of onion sets are discounted now so it's pretty cheap. I have been known to plant the sets at one inch spacing so that they grow into spring onions (that's 144 sets in a square foot so alot of spring onions).

Make a list of what veg you like to eat. This will give the core things to try growing. Every gardener has their own reasons for what they grow (some grow the staples because they eat loads, others grow the expensive stuff, some like the weird and wonderful hard/impossible to find veg) but by starting off with what you know you'll eat helps build that sense of achievement.

[Snoop Puss]

Hello and welcome. And congratulations!

Bit at a time is good advice. And nickdub's right, people are likely to have lots of spare plants at this time of year and allotmenteers are by and large a friendly lot, so I'm sure you'll get lots of offers of plants.

Meanwhile, what do you fancy growing? What do you like eating?

[Logunner]

Congrats... just at the end of my first year, best thing I’ve done in years.

Work on the premis of ‘marathon, not a sprint’ and you will be reet. Only kill weeds, never be without a hoe or a water butt, and don’t be afraid of weedkiller it can be a necessary tool at times.

[SarrissUK]

Go to car boot sales for cheap tools - you can often pick up spades, hoes, rakes, shovels for a couple of quid each.

Cover everything.

Dig one bed at a time, and leave for a week, hoe the weeds, then sow. Start next bed, rinse and repeat

[Freespace]

Congratulations. My advice is to take your time and enjoy yourself.have a look in Wilko's, I got some seed potatoes yesterday that had been reduced.( Wasn't going to grow any this year). There were onion sets also reduced.

[SarrissUK]

Wow, I must've been on auto pilot just then! I don't do any digging really - I use the no dig method where I lay down thick cardboard on the ground, then tip well rotted horse manure on top of that. Around five inches thick, I'd say, then I plant into that. I get the card board from a farm shop, and the horse manure from a local horse lady.
If you want to learn more about no dig, gogglesearch Charles Dowding
Good luck!

[Cadalot]

Here is my take on clearing a new allotment Alans Allotment: Clearing a New Allotment

[Baldy]

Welcome along.. already a lot of good advice here - and for once mostly in agreement

[Jay-ell]

Welcome along.. already a lot of good advice here - and for once mostly in agreement

Well that won't last for long

[Jungle Jane]

Hello Brum congratulations on getting your allotment let us know how you’re getting on,I’d start by clearing a square of ground to plant seed potatoes now,good luck with it all

[Baldy]

Well that won't last for long

Yes it will...