Virgin allotment owner

[paradise]

Hello everybody, having just procured an allotment , an a complet novise i was hoping for some good advice before i have even taken a spad to my new venture!

[nick the grief]

Employ a gardener

Welcome to the vine Pardise. What we always tell people is don't try and do it all in one go (especially in the weather we're having at the moment) all you'll do is get disheartened & end up with a bad back.

If it's really weedy try & get hold of some black plastic ( the sort farmers use for silage pits is good) and cover it all over. Pin it down with whatever you've got to hand, or get some tubs from your loacl pound shop & put some Pansies & bulbs in them ( bit late for summer bedding I guess) & use these to weigh it down, at least it won't look so bad then.

Sit down & decide what you like to eat & what is practical to grow (pineapples may be nice but a bit impractical on a lottie) from this you can get your list of vegetables & then split them into the four groups.

Make a scale plan of the lottie & then work out which way it faces & split it into 5 or 6 areas roughly the same size (helpfull but not neccesary) then you can make a start on the first area that will have next years spuds on it by rolling back the plastic & clearing & digging that bit (rolling back the plastic as you go. If you can get hold of some manure that will only help at this stage. then you can do the next area that wil be for soft fruit if you want to grow some. then you can clear the next area for the brassica's etc etc.

This will use 5 areas (4 for veg & 1 for fruit) the spare area can be used for some cut flowers giving you a 5 year rotation which will be good for pest control.

Hope this helps

[paradise]

Hi nick the grief, wow! what a swift reply many thanks,great advice for the starter sound fairly straight forward so far, cannot wait to get stuck in. Please keep the advice flowing

[nick the grief]

The advice is the easy bit, it's the questions we need