Beginners Guide to Allotments

Right! so now you're in with the allotment veterans and everything is nailed, screwed, alarmed and generally villain proof.
What I'd like you to do next is take a long hard look at your new allotment. What kind of state is it in has it been carefully planned and preserved? Is it well worked and organised? Is everything on it in tip-top condition? I think your answer is most probably NO! So take in some information. Is it south facing? Is it giving you the maximum growing space possible or are the sheds, compost heap and all the rest of the collective rubbish taking up most of the room. Are the hedges overgrown? Is the fence falling down? all these things will need to be addressed in due time but for now go home or to your car and draw yourself a plan. Include in your plan anything worth keeping - does it need moved elsewhere for easier access or to make the best use of the space. Are there fruit trees you want to keep? Which areas get the most sunlight? Which areas are not suitable for growing.....this may sound weird but the area of allotments I work - in their wisdom decided to carve the area up with more pathways then changed their minds and if you are one of the unlucky ones your allotment has a tarmac path straight through it!!! For now enjoy designing your own layout and in my next blog we will move on to how others lay out their allotment.
Happy planning.
Sandkat xx

The Beginning of your Allotment Garden

Check out my new blog for herb growing http://allotmentherbplot.blogspot.com

So now you have everything safe and un-moveable with lots of nails, screw and padlocks. We now want to look at the second thing you really must make a priority before you begin.
This is so simple but its something that most people overlook until it's too late to take advantage of.
So what am I on about. Well - all around your allotment there will be "good blokes" who have been growing stuff on allotments for years. Many will have horses or chickens, geese etc. For certain they will have an absolute wealth of knowledge that they have built up for many years probably passed on by their Fathers. You cannot get this type of information from a text book - believe me. If you are asking why not I will tell you.
Every allotment is different - the soil is different - the growing conditions are different - the climate is different. These "good blokes" will have been storing up valuable time tested ways of dealing with pests, getting the most out of your veg, knowing what type grows and what doesn't. They will point you in the direction of the best place to get feed, to buy seeds, where to borrow machinery from. But best of all they will have a fountain of knowledge on planning an allotment, getting the best from it and how to store veg once its grown. Get to know them. They will be one of the biggest aids to success I know and, believe me, they will not waste a moment in getting round to offering advice and explaining how brilliant they are and how much they know.
So - take advantage of this brilliant resource. There is however another advantage, even people who have allotments go on holiday - so cultivate these friendship's and you can be of mutual assistance to each other by overseeing their patch, watering whilst away and feeding each others chickens etc. Next we get down to the real fun part..............

Beginners Guide to Allotments

So were almost into winter and I am assuming you have recently inherited an allotment or perhaps you have had one for a while and have done very little with it.
Some people might advise you to prepare for next year and you absolutley should.......but........before you embark on any of the "technical nitty gritty" of working your allotment I want you to ask yourself " do I have valuable items on my allotment?"
Now by valuable I don't mean a 52" HD TV I mean good quality spades, feed for hens, seed trays ...........I am not joking here. One of the first things you will most probaby encounter once you obtain an allotment is that the most unlikely things seem to sprout legs and disappear!!!!!
Allotment sites may be locked up and out of the way of the general public but it is surprising how interested and tenacious the type of people who couldn't care less if you bought a fork or spade with your last penny or if your latest shed is a product of your own fair hands, if they want it - believe me - they will take it. So the hard lesson is wherever possible take your equipment home and lock everything else away. If you put any sheds or greenhouses up make sure they are difficult to dismantle and screw everything down. Not all allotments have this problem but stealing and vandalism are very common.
We will have a word about the second thing you should do before you pick up a spade in my next blog
Sandkat xx

Beginners Guide to Allotments

Hi, Just by way of an introduction, I'd like to introduce ourselves.
We are three very ordinary people ......... Sand, Kat and Tom. Actually apart from myself we are all "Townies" that is to say beginners and frankly none of us started this "allotment gardening business" with anything more than a scant amount of know how when it came to vegetable or allotment gardening.
So - the point is where do you begin? How do you start? This is all mysterious stuff ....... one thing we did find out, to our cost, was that we needed to stop learning by our mistakes and get it right first time. Not that it is a life or death situation when it does go wrong but after a lot of backbreaking work and many hours of intensive labour, it really is the most dishearteneing feeling when you have to start re-arranging everything or all your litle seeds wither up and die.
Right, well your'e not reading this unless you need some help so after today we are going to look at some very basic advice - even before you reach for the spade. See you soon xx Sandkat