Selfsufficientish.com

Hello all,
Having introduced myself in the New members section I thought I would introduce you to my allotment too! We got it at the end of January and unfortunately I wasn't very organised this year and could have done a lot better. It also looks like we had some contaminated manure as my poor potatoes developed very curly leaves (unless anyone has any other ideas on what could have caused it).

So to start, this first picture was roughly Feb 2009. Our plot had never been worked and no it is not the grim reaper in the picture it is my OH with a strimmer over his shoulder



We made a lot of errors this year including not planning properly (amongst other things). But by the summer it was looking a lot better...














This year I need to get a lot done before planting. I am going to make my raised beds much bigger as I haven't made the best use of space I have a greenhouse ready to go at the back and the grass is going as I spent a lot of time strimming this year. I need to create a shady area aswell as during the summer my OH suffers badly with heat stroke which gives him terrible migraines.

We fenced it off this year as our allotment is plagued by bunnies and they were getting at everything. Unfortunately one of the sides was fenced using wire with too big holes so we need to replace that as the pesky baby bunnies could still get through

Hope I haven't bored you all, I love looking/nosing at pics of others allothements. Advice and critisism all welcome!

I think it looks amazing and you did an awful lot in just one year and you have loads of veg! Well done - you should be very proud of yourselves!

It's all a learning curve and you can't expect to get everything right the first year - it's quite normal anyway to try things and find they could have been done better another way and to experiment. It's what gardening is all about, the main thing is to have fun along the way (oh yes and a few edibles too).

It looks to me like you did fantastically well for the first year - in fact good for any year!

You did really well and I'm jealous as we've got a huge garden but the cottage is rented..........don't think our landlady would like it if we dug up the big lawn and turned it into a veg and fruit plot, shame.

well done its looking great, keep up the good work

Millymollymandy wrote: It's all a learning curve and you can't expect to get everything right the first year -

Yeah man, i dug a 4x4x4 ft hole only to fill it in a month later because it was holding way too much water to compost in. Very good I hope I do as well as you Ive had mine since Oct 09.

Hi Spider 8 - I know how you feel as we were in a similar situation...however it may be worth a shot - we have negotiated a £50 rental increase to be able to use a field which was just grass - and have drawn up a 'side letter' to go with our tenancy agreement saying that we will put the field back to the way it was before we leave.

Our LL didn't insist on this though - we offered. Her view was that the next tenants may also want a veggie patch too. She also said it was reassuring as it indicated that we wanted to stay - after I have finished digging the whole HALF ACRE BY HAND (If I am still alive), I am not blooming likely to go anywhere fast!

It really is painful having to look at space going unused, when you have gardening in your blood!

I have to say in absolute honesty, WOW!! i have been growing myown for years and i have never acheived as much in one year as you have, you must be so proud of your selves. Good luck this year and remember what worked last year might not work this year but dont get down hearted about it, its natures way of keeping you on your toe's

Eve

I think you must have done this before because you have done amazingly well in one year. With the experienced gained and some planning you will soon be seriously feeding yourselves throughout the year.

What are you going to replace the paths with, mypek and wood chips?

I've tried various methods with the bed system, mypek and woodchip is not bad, paving on sand is good but a bit extreme for an allotment. Personally I like to keep the grass paths because then they are productive (for the compost) but you need to make it so they are easy to mow, either by removing the timber surrounds to the beds or by sinking some bricks or timber, just below the level of the grass, around the timber to the beds, so that the mower will work without leaving a bit of grass close to the bed timber. If you mow regularly, with a mower with a collection bucket so removing all the clippings, then the grasses change to the slower growing less vigourous types and it becomes easier and easier.

I got my lotty last year and was quite proud of what I produced, but looking at yours I think I could have done better!