Selfsufficientish.com

For many allotment holders a shed and rows of vegetables is about the most that will go on the plot.

For us (me and Emma) as we don't have much of a garden we decided to make part of our plot into a small garden and wildlife area. We have a pond, a patch of big daisys (can't remember the botanical name), an abour (two bits of corrugated iron bent into an arch) with a bench under it. We also have a wild flower area and a herb patch. I am working on getting proper paths across the plot by sinking bricks or old patio slabs into the soil.

It is much easier to spend longer on the plot as you can shield yourself from the sun and put your feet up whilst looking at the pondlife.

When I've watched progs on telly about allotments, the ones I like the best are the ones that mix flowers with the edibles. Usually they are rather higgeldy piggeldy without the perfect straight rows and no weeds of some kinds of veg plots.

Yours sounds lovely Andy.

The plot I chose had only one advantage over the other two , it had a very small hand made shed. In there we have a gas trangier and kettle, i think lottie tea tastes the best of all.

I've laid a rough patio (4ft x 4 ft)with some slabs I managed to get. And we will get some nice seating. My OH has planted some wild seeds, and the next bed we're digging together is going to be for her flower cutting bed.
The 5th bed I finished this weekend will be planted tonight with my main crop spuds and beans.

I'm planning to come up with some sort of water harvesting system. Not having a large shed roof limits it a bit

we have a sort of broken anderson shelter type shed, the door doesn't shut and there's only half a roof but I refuse to fix it up because in two years it's the only 'shed' ignored by vandals and thieves

we have a whole load of those cheap, metal rose arches tied together across the central path which, when covered with (alternate years) runner beans or winter squashes makes a lovey, shadey tunnel.

We await permission from the commitee to dig our little pond. (hopefully this week)

we have a moveable chicken enclosure. Our chooks live in our garden but will be travelling to the plot to help us clear and prepare beds this year. we hope this will give them a varied diet while saving some of the damage to our garden from their free ranging.

We have foldable camping chairs and a whole range of stuff to occupy the kids while we work.

We have a fox hole, complete with foxes, in the bank along a side of our plot. Kinda means chooks are out of the question.

Did have a struggle to explain to my friend why I called all the foxes Reynard though...I have always thought it was the traditional name for foxes, but she claimed never to have heard of it.

It means 'the red one', makes sense!

'Renard' is also the French for 'fox'.

I've just taken on my second plot and it has a shed (Hooray, the car has now stopped being a mobile shed!) A small pond at the back (fed by rain butts) an apple tree, a pear tree, onions just going to seed and In the first bed I've started to dig I've found a few new potatos! It also has several huge crowns of rhubard (like the first one has) and we've discovered 2 gooseberry bushes so far and lots of daffodils! So what with the rhubard crowns on our patch and the plum tree we will hopefully be ok for some fruit later in the year!
mithril.

We just found a hidden water tank in our brambles!

littlebluefish wrote:We just found a hidden water tank in our brambles!

Any water in it? That might be of interest in this dry year!

mithril wrote:I've just taken on my second plot and it has a shed (Hooray, the car has now stopped being a mobile shed!) A small pond at the back (fed by rain butts) an apple tree, a pear tree, onions just going to seed and In the first bed I've started to dig I've found a few new potatos! It also has several huge crowns of rhubard (like the first one has) and we've discovered 2 gooseberry bushes so far and lots of daffodils! So what with the rhubard crowns on our patch and the plum tree we will hopefully be ok for some fruit later in the year!
mithril.

I'm glad to see I am not the only person who types rhubarb like that! (I'm not nit picking over your spelling btw )

Anyway sounds really great finding all that on your allotment!

ina wrote:Any water in it? That might be of interest in this dry year!

Yes but nothing I'd want to put anywhere. The most vile, foul smelling stuff ever. We had to empty it to get it out of the brambles and over to the field!

rhubarb
dahilias
poached egg plants and veg
dave

I have what I call my "comic garden" laid out in the front under a tree , I have a little stove and two fridges from campers, 3 bathroom basins, a toilet and a tub from a washer that I grow all my flowers in

I have 2 volunteer plum trees in the corner of one patch, a pear tree, a tayberry and lots of rhubarb.

Lois

yugo wot tayberrys like
dave