New Allotment Owner

[southlondonone]

Little update. Unfortunately nothing much on the growing front, albeit there is some news!

1) Storage built and compost bins have been built now and finished. Well, I need to fit some guttering to the storage as a water collector as I desperately need some rain water for my blueberries! I had some flowers on one already, two waterings with tap water and they have gone brown!

2) Blueberries potted up, christmas tree needles laid on the top of each of the pots, and they have sprouted leaves very well!

3) Raspberry canes are doing really well in the main. I bought some and was donated some by another plot holder. I thought these might take a year or two to grow but some are really flourishing! Loads of leaves on which is great.

4) Strawberries are flowering already. Some even have runners on them! I am going to cut the off though as want them to focus their energy on growing themselves.

5) I have today laid a fair bit of artificial grass on the paths. These paths were always going to be my nemisis really. They arent wide enough for a lawn mower so grass was a no no. Pea shingle was another idea but no again as want my young ones to be able to push their toys along etc. So am going for old slabs as and when i can get them, maybe some carpet as well.

6) Seeds have been planted in my mini greenhouse. I messed up with some. I used recycled soil from the allotment compost bin. What a mistake. I planted some leek seeds in a roses chocolate container. I have every type of weed growing includin the leeks. It'll be a nightmare to sort them, have planted another pack of seeds in a different container though with special seed soil!

What I don't get is when to plant seeds. The packs mainly say Feb to May planting for varying things. But when I did people were amazed I was planting so early. And most failed. My worry is if I plant them too late I wont get anything!! lol

Potatoes I have planted after chitting. I am going to stagger planting them though.

i think this year is just trial and error. I am going to keep a diary of sorts to date when I put things in and when I got results as this will help next year.

Anyway, onto the photos!!

[southlondonone]

(Struggling with the other pictures as too big! But they will follow!)

[southlondonone]

Pictures

[Jay-ell]

Looking good. I'd stay clear of old carpets as the synthetic backing can break up into chunks and get into the soil - the same for the fibres of the carpets. In days gone by when carpets were wool and backed with hessian and natural dyes were used they would just break down and compost.

Soil will also accumulate on the carpet and build up. My first allotment had fence to fence carpeting under 6 inches of soil with the holes where the beds were in the wrong places. weeds had woven their roots throughout the carpets and all the rubber backing had deteriorated - mind you these had been buried for about 14 years.

Keeping the sowing diary is a good idea.

[vixylix]

Looking fab South London one - your hard work is really paying off! I am so very jealous of your rhubarb patch!

As for trial and error - thats what GYO is all about, some years things will work and some they won't. There are so many factors outside of your control.

With seeds I've just experimented with timing - sometimes they've been too early and sometimes they've been too late but they always more or less work out fine. The problem with sowing too early is that you can end up lugging huge plants around before you can plant them out.

Work out your last frost date and then just plan roughly backwards, bearing in mind the size different things grow at. For instance leeks should never really be a huge problem, they grow slowly whereas a tomato or courgette will be huge after 6 weeks.

Don't over think it, you'll soon find your way. This is the best time of the year!