New to the game

[Colin Mudd]

Good evening...morning..afternoon...depending on when you read this..

I have just acquired a fairly large allotment 600 sq yards..of which almost 1/2 has now been dug and weeded...

One area had a bofire on it....I weeded anything left..dug it twice and added pelleted poultry manure...which fortunately got rained in well today...will that suffice ? or do I need to do more ...

Whilst I have your attention .....my potatoes are now in ....will poultry manure do for them too ?

Is garlic very sluggish to get going ?

Any tips gratefully received...

Best wishes

Colin

[Demeter]

Hey Colin - welcome to the vine.
That's a huge allotment! Especially if you are new to veg growing. Sounds like you have made a good start.

Chicken manure is fine for spuds.
Garlic can be slow - when did you plant yours?

What else are you planning to grow?

My tip is (1) to read around what others are doing, I have learned loads from this forum which answers most of my questions before I even ask them! and (2) try not to bite off more than you can chew - better not to have enough than get disheartened because you have too much and can't keep up!

[selfraising]

Hi there and welcome to the vine!

[kate&rob]

welcome Colin, as Demeter says, the vine is a great place to find out just about anything. there are some very knowledgable people out there, unfortunately i'm not one of them

[Pumpkin Becki]

Wow! That is a big allotment.

I would suggest, if you can't get all your dug areas planted/sewed immediately, it would pay you to peg some plastic sheet/brown cardboard or similar over the bare bits. This will stop weeds coming up again and preserve the nutrients in the soil for when you are ready to plant out.

Alternatively, you could try sewing a green manure, which are usually left to grow until they are flowering, then you chop them down, put the tops on the compost heap and dig the roots into the soil. Again, these improve soil structure and in many cases help add nitrogen or other nutrients into the soil. If you do a search for green manure on the menu bar i'm sure you'll find lots of threads.

Wishing you a successful growing season.

[Eyren]

Wow, that is a big allotment!

I would go easy on the chicken manure with the spuds - too much and you could end up with a lot of soft top-growth that succumbs easily to blight. Unless you have reason to suspect that the soil is poor, I would just water them in dry weather (if we get any!) - a drop of tomato feed wouldn't go amiss when they're flowering, as I believe they appreciate a bit of potassium.

Re the garlic, if you haven't got any in yet, it's a bit late to get them going - they won't have time to develop properly before June/July, which is their normal harvest time. If you do have them in, they should be up by now!

Apart from that - I would get some late summer crops started at home (runner and French beans, courgettes, squash, sweetcorn - whatever you like eating), and keep the ground covered until they're ready to go in. It's about the right time to plant peas and onion sets, too. Plus in a month or two you can buy young plants of winter crops like leeks and broccoli (I got some good ones on ebay), saving a lot of hassle raising them from seed.

Good luck!

[MrsC]

Hi Colin, I got my first allotment last sept although I have been growing veg at home for a few years. I'm just working my way through. Worth maybe covering part you're not going to plant though. My lottie is about 300 sq mtrs

[tricky]

welcome colin
just like to say you have a veryyyyyyyyyyy big allotment there , enjoy and hope you have a good season

[D23dur]

hello Colin, if its your first year don't worry too much about stuff. if you have dug it over well just keep on top of the weeding and you will be amazed the next year how much easier it is to dig over. spuds will grow pretty much anywhere without too much help i have found. keep it simple and remember to enjoy it. there will be bad times but the good times will more than make up for it. good luck