This is the place to discuss not just allotments but all general gardening problems and queries which don't fit into the specific categories below.
(formerly allotments and tips, hints and problems)
Thanks for the welcome in the newbie section, now for my first request for help, a few of you are already famiilar with my stupendous brambles - see blog !!
However lets just imagine that I am able to get to a small patch of earth in the next three weeks what can i put in ? I was hoping for winter onions, garlic and my mam has found some spinach that will go in September any other suggestions - or shall I just dig like a mad women until Feb - March and then get sowing ??
I'm going to be in sunny south wales myself in a couple of weeks - and I plan to plant garlic, spinach and broad beans, and have some (cos) lettuce seedlings coming along nicely in hopes that I can get them to overwinter.
I've had a lot of success overwintering chard; it makes a nice change from kale and is only set back by hard frosts, when I stick a bit of fleece over it. But it's a bit late to start it off now...still, I bet you're looking ahead to next year, too!
One of the best things about chard is that the flavour doesn't change when it bolts, even when it's bolted all the way to seed. Great stuff!
When my pursuit of freedom causes harm to another living being, it becomes a dictatorship.
O the joy of a new plottie!
Wherever you have cleared the ground (I don't dig ), you can sow winter tares throughout September as green manure. Scythe down in March and leave as mulch, the roots will give nitrogen to the soil and the mulch will stop annual weeds undoing all your good work! When you want to sow, just move the mulch aside to put seeds in, or plant direct thru the mulch. Winter lettuce can be sown now for cropping early next year
I got my allotment about a week ago so am in much the same position - although with nettles instead of brambles.
Current plan is to make a couple of small beds at the front now where I'll plant winter stuff - I've got some onion sets, some garlic and I'm planning on broad beans and hopefully some spinach too. I'm also going to bung in a few flowering bulbs (snowdrops, crocus and narcissi) so I get the encouragement of some pretty flowers to start the year.
Once that's done, the rest is going to be hacked down to ground level, dug over and covered in plastic until we're ready to tackle the next patch.
I'm hoping that will make it feel a bit less 'epic' a battle.
Our new lottie is covered in grass & thistles, edged in bindweed. We can't use plastic or carpet on this site, so will be planting green manure as we clear patches for planting. We've got broad beans etc to go in as our first planting.
First job has been to clear patch for the greenhouse we managed to acquire in the same week as the plot. We've been digging out rocks & broken glass while levelling the site - bit disturbing really.
How is it that the allotments seem to get so run down before you get them? Tis a bit odd, eh?
There seems to be lots of people waiting for them, but everytime someone gets one it seems to be in an awful state. Are they leased on a yearly basis or something, and folks just lose interest before their lease is up or something?
i'm reading a book at the moment by a woman who got her own allottment (well, she ended up with two by sheer luck after a while!) and the rules where she is say that they've got to keep the space clear and in good condition, and if the committee are not satisfied that it is, then it will be given to th next person on the list, but they won't gie away a plot unless they are satisfied that the person owning it is not looking after it at all.
So maybe it just takes these committees a while to get round, and to check that the person is really not looking after it. We all know how quick nettles and bindweed can crop up!!
When we went for our first look around we had the rules explained. Our site gets inspected every six weeks. If it's not being worked you get a warning letter, if you've not rectified the situation by the next inspection you get a second warning, if it gets to the third inspection your're out.
They seem to be pretty hot on keeping things working.
The reason our plot is so overgrown is that it's a newly opened area, 18 months ago there were only 10 plots in use, but there's been a surge of interest and back in April they expanded into the unused area at the end of the field. The site now has 80 plots and when we applied there were just 3 vacanies. By the end of the year there will be a waitlist I'm sure.
Anyway, they cleared and ploughed the whole new area back in April but it's nto been touched since - hence the waist high weeds.
On our site all plots are strimmed & rotavated before being let to new members. However, our plot was sprung on us slightly: I'm ill, one friend has just started work in new house & other is away a lot over summer as she leads tour groups (we'd been told nothing would be available 'til Jan 07). We've had the plot for a month now, it was strimmed etc a couple of weeks before that & the shed only went up this weekend, meaning we've had to take tools to & from the site every visit.
I should be up there now, but am suffering a bit after a long walk on Sat. so having to take things easy.
Chickpea wrote:
Take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Relief! They are going to clear the site for me mid October! They dig down 2 foot with a mechanical digger, so most of the root will be removed as well.
lucky old you! what a good service to have.
Somone new has the allotment just across from me and we've all been watching in amazement as he removed the hedges to get a mechanical diger onto the site - I've never seen anything so fast! A plot covered with one year's worth of weeds is now bare earth with what seems to be an endlessly slow-burning bonfire in the middle. I do wonder whether the soil is so compacted that digging it will be murder but perhaps he has a rotavator...
), you can sow winter tares throughout September as green manure. Scythe down in March and leave as mulch, the roots will give nitrogen to the soil and the mulch will stop annual weeds undoing all your good work! When you want to sow, just move the mulch aside to put seeds in, or plant direct thru the mulch. Winter lettuce can be sown now for cropping early next year 
