First year allotment - were you successful?

[Keith2202]

snakeshack, very impressive work!

I'm a little puzzled about your how your comment "onions from sets were pathetic" ties in with picture 2???????????? Looks a pretty good crop to me!

"good crop of caterpillars on a calabrese root stock (no leaves though)" Ha ha that made me laugh

I got mine late June, 8m x 12m. I've spent about 100 hours digging up well established couch grass (so well established in fact that it seemed to have partially smothered the mats of bindweed roots!), bindweed roots and brambles. I've still only got 1/3 to 1/2 cleared maybe and I'm getting bored of the digging, although it is considerably easier now that it has actually rained!

I've managed to get quite a bounty of dwarf French beans off about 2 plants, tomatoes off 3 plants, a reasonable amount of potatoes, including a few volunteers that I thought was a volunteer tomato due to the seeds growing (it was dark when I found them!), about 8 courgettes off one plant, a couple of pumpkins.
A pretty good return especially as I didn't water them much (the couple of runner bean plants were rubbish) and wasn't expecting much of the plot this year.

I also uncovered further hidden treasure in the form of 3 gooseberry bushes hidden under the couch grass which will hopefully give me fruit next year, and some jerusalem artichokes which grew of their own accord which I had never eaten before. Plus a few blackberries to snack on while chopping down the brambles!

I was also given some onions, courgettes/marrows, a big bag of Picasso potatoes, green and purple French beans, a cucumber, yellow tomatoes (which were so delicious my non-tomato fan girlfriend asked me to try and blag some more!), and a couple of white aubergines by other friendly plot holders.

Much to my astonishment I was also successful in growing two cauliflowers in my back garden!

So a pretty good 4 months I reckon!! I'm looking forward to more.

Keep up the good work everyone.

[The Nichols']

Got our plot Easter weekend. With a small child, decided not to use the plough man (as many of our neighbours did) so we could cut in beds and leave paths. Divided the plot into 12 beds with 1m paths between each. Unfortunately, the plot is 7.4m one end but only 6.2m the other so beds are 4m x whatever I worked out would leave 1m in the middle of them. )

When we took over the plot the back part had one long trench and several large holes where the local kids had used it to play army games in their younger days so a lot of the early days was filling these in to reduce injury risks, especially when H got pregnant! Luckily, we have several squares of grass cut from the soil to make our beds so mostly, that's now done.

With a small child wanting to "help" and do whatever daddy was doing, progress was slow but as we head into November, there's 4 beds finished for veg, 1 for fruit, 1 for chickens and 1 for the shed. This leaves 4 beds still to cut in and do with the chicken run getting extended when the last hole is filled in.

As far as results go, having just written what we got, I think we did pretty well after all! lol. We've had onions, garlic, loads of potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages, brocolli, courgettes (of course), pati pan, 2 pumpkins, radishes, lettuces, peas, mangetout, sweetcorn, beetroot.

So not a huge amount grown but this year was always going to be a preparation year where things were stuffed into whatever space happened to be available at the time they needed to get out of the seed tray rather than in a bed with their fellow veg type.

S

[crazywitch]

save your horsetail and dry it i saw a couple of articles that said a tea made from horsetail is a very good organic treatment to stop blight in potatoes and tomatoes. dont know if this is true or not. anyone out there tried it?

[weekendwellies]

save your horsetail and dry it i saw a couple of articles that said a tea made from horsetail is a very good organic treatment to stop blight in potatoes and tomatoes. dont know if this is true or not. anyone out there tried it?

I heard that too. Apparently it is full of potasium or something.
Not sure I want a barrel of the stuff though.

[spennysaint]

Hi all

Got my plot in feb/march time then found out i was pregnant! - the whole plot was 6 foot high brambles. Cut them all back and dug about half the plot. Got cabbages/red cabbage/sprouts/aubergines/courgette/butternut squash/potatoes and onions an oh and leeks, carrots,beetroot and spring onion anc chard. Planted rhubarb, goseberry and raspberry and redcurrent At home had tomatoes,cucmbers,peppers,runner and french beans.

My OH not into growing but i got him to spray the bit that still has bramble roots in as they had started to grow back and i knew i wouldn't get that bit dug this year - couldn't face six foot brambles again!!

Haven't been up to the lottie much over past few months as baby is due any day now. Can't wait to get up there in feb time. I have a years maternity leave so the babs will be getting used to being outside. I'm quite excited that as the baby gets older s/he will be able to get involved and see where food comes from

Although I'm dreading what i'll find when i go up there in the new year i feel quite proud of how much i've done this year (mostly on my own).

Claire

[weekendwellies]

Wow Spenny. You are an inspiration growing all that in your first year and pregnant too.
Good luck for next year, and the baby will thrive in the fresh air.
They do seem to be very interested in where the food comes from for the first 10 years, after that they lose interest generally (starting secondary school may have something to do with that, its just not cool to grow things then!) Then in later life they remember those early years outdoors, and regain an interest.
Great start to life for him/her. All the best.