Bang in Spuds and Sweetcorn?

[Effigy]

Taking on a new Lottie seems to be a problem in the inital months.

My idea is to try and fill as much space as I can with spuds and sweetcorn - both require large amounts of land which I could rough clear just enough to plant in.

This will give me time to work on the rest of the alotment, whilst having something growing.

What do you think? Would this work?

[HeyWayne]

Sounds ok, providing you love spuds and sweetcorn.

I'd suggest you'd be better off breaking the plot up into manageable chunks and growing things you'll enjoy eating. Cover what ground you don't use in cardboard/plastic/thick mulch and concentrate on doing small areas well, rather than large areas ok.

You don't, and probably won't get the whole plot working in the first year (certainly not the first few months), but you'll get there in the end.

Good luck.

[Alison]

I don't find that sweetcorn takes up much space as it's basically a vertical plant although suppose it depends on how much of it you want to grow.

[SarzWix]

You can plant both sweetcorn & potatoes through weed suppressing material/thick cardboard, which is quite useful for keeping the weeds down. Also, you could plant courgettes/squash/pumpkins in between the corn so long as you put plenty of compost in their holes/mulch the area with compost or manure before covering. You might not get a massive crop, but it does work

[Two_Sheds]

I am covering my cleared bits of the lottie with Limnanthes: it attracts hoverflies and bees, keeps the weeds down, and is a good green manure. When I have a crop ready to go in, I will just pull up the Limnanthes (before it self-seeds everywhere) and chuck it on the compost heap. http://www.archiemiles.co.uk/Images/...0douglasii.jpg

[Snadger]

I am covering my cleared bits of the lottie with Limnanthes: it attracts hoverflies and bees, keeps the weeds down, and is a good green manure. When I have a crop ready to go in, I will just pull up the Limnanthes (before it self-seeds everywhere) and chuck it on the compost heap. http://www.archiemiles.co.uk/Images/...0douglasii.jpg

Looks quite pretty as well!

Is this your own idea TS or have you poached it? (sic)

[Lavenderblue]

Looks quite pretty as well!

Is this your own idea TS or have you poached it? (sic)

*snigger*

That is a good idea - we have loads of bare soil at the moment, i will try that

[Winged one]

We dug and immediately planted last year. Started with a bed of spuds, then a bed of onions and garlic, then a bed of brassica seedlings (from the garden centre), and then some peas and lettuces. Most of that space was a very rough digging initially as we didn't have the time to devote to it, but we did get a fair amount of produce in the end (caulis were disappointing, and not great harvest of peas, but a couple of handfulls every few weeks was ok - didn't sow enough and had to wage war against slugs, pigeons and mice!!).

The brassicas were useful as, once they got going, they covered the soil quite well so weeds got no light and didn't really get going again. The spud bed was pretty decently cleared too.

Covering before weeds get going is a very good idea - cardboard weighed down with manure would be very good. We strimmed off the back end of the plot in the autumn, sprayed wityh glyphosate, and then covered with plastic for the winter and are getting to dig it now in fits and starts.