Cliff's new allotment, has two objectives 1. GROWING ALL THE TIME and 2. Using the Minimum of Effort. The key is never dig, use raised beds and always use permeable membrane to keep the weeds down.
25th November 2008. Finally cleared the last of the Nicola potatoes, bagged up the remaining mushroom compost and started preparing the new squash bank ready for next year.
17th November 2008. Like everyone else, our brassicas have been severely attacked by Cabbage White butterfly catterpillars and they're still eating voraciously now. The green sprout buds themselves have been left alone so far, but thereds. Cropped potatoes, leeks, swede, beetroot,
27th October 2008. The leeks are recovering from the last attack and the Jaune de Poitou are delicious. The Spanda sprouts and the red sprouts are also nicely cropping.
18th October 2008. Cropping beetroot, lettuces, leeks and swedes. Netted the broad bean (Super Aquadulce) bed, cleared the last of the sweet corn, some weeding, cleared the remaining Tondo courgettes and the beans and planted the foxgloves,
29th September 2008. Sowed white and red onion sets (Radar, Electric and Silvermoon) for over-wintering using two 24ft beds. I planted another 24ft bed with Aquadulce Broad Beans. Just needs the last remaining pole and runner beans and the sweet corn bed to be cleared then we're ready for the winter.
29th September 2008. Cleared the remaining squashes, fifteen beautiful Anna Swartz plus five huge 'crosses'which we'll have to eat first.
20th Sept, Cropped 10 Turks Turban squash, 5 Early Golden Hubbard squash plus 6 crosses, 4 Blue Banana squash, and there's still some 15 Anna Swartz squash on the plot. 3 Tondo courgettes have been left to become marrows (for the seed.) For full Turks Turban image.
Turks Turban
1st August, using the minimum of effort seems to be working. We're picking upto seven courgettes a day (the wonderful Tondo di Piacenza, big round dark green and tasty) and normally a bag of pole beans, Blue Lake and Barlotti at the moment. Sometimes we also have some beetroot and we've tried the Turks Turban squashes - excellent. The onions need lifting as soon as we have the threat of some nice weather. Plus if we knew more about them, we have dozens of mushrooms.
19th July, well two hours was a bit optimistic, still all the beds are done and the path has only 5ft to be done. The Tondo courgettes are forming nicely and the beetroot all seen to have been successfully planted out.
15th July and we're almost there, one concentrated push for two hours and it'll be finished. Everything's growing wih great gusto.
1st July, apart from a bit of finishing off, it's now all about the crops. The first potatoes have been dug, and today I counted the baby squashes starting to grow, ergo the new title for this page. The some of the leaves are huge.
29th June. Dug up 6lbs of potatoes, our first rewards. Tidied up the allotment, did some weeding and watering, but have kept the remaining beds to be done next weekend.
20th June. Just two half beds to finish, 6 and 6X. One will be needed for the beetroot. 6Z has now been done and then planted with Blue Banana squash. You can tell we like squash, but Angie wanted a simple straight-forward green squash, Anna Swartz; my friend Roger was horrified by the look of Turks Turban so we had to grow some of them; Jacqui said the Blue Banana had a superb flavour; and I like the colour of the Early Golden Hubbard.
29th May. Winter squash (Anna Swartz) have been planted in bed 10, bed 5 and 7 have been split into 5A and 7A, so that the Sweet corn could be planted in a square block.
22nd May. Real progress. Finally completed bed 10, and started both bed 5 and bed 8. Some winter squashes will soon be ready to plant out. Completed the brassica bed sometime in the last seven days. Planted banana and bamboos yesterday.
13th May. Bean beds progressing and more mushroom compost arrived today. Built a working table, strong enough to sit on, rigid enough to use as a saw bench, level enough for a pitcher of wine. Need to prepare the brassica bed next as they are ready to be planted out.
6th May. We're running behind schedule due to having a holiday and needing to keep 'Our Allotment' (the original one) going. Laid some more black plastic to smother the ground where the sweet corn will go. Cut more slots for the potatoes as they come through. More digging needed on the bean beds! Lavender showing strongly. (Ordered onion seeds and Greek Basil seeds.)
19th April, Moved towards the net phase. The posts for the bean beds are in place, now to dig the rows and prepare the soil. We have sown beans and courgettes in root-trainers, but those are for The Allotment to give them an early start. We'll sow beans straight into the beds at the beginning of May. Squashes will be sown into root-trainers at the same time. We think will exceed the capacity of The Allotment and have to find room here at The Gardens for the surplus. This excess may include leeks, courgettes and brassicas.
15th April, Finished bed 3 and planted all the onion sets (need more next year) and netted the bed. Now switch to preparing the beds and posts for the pole and runner beans.
12th April, Summary:- beds 1 and 2 largely done and planted with new and main crop potatoes. beds 3 done ready for main crop onions; beds 11 and 16 done and planted with raspberries; bed 9 done and planted with flowers; bed 4 almost ready.
8th April 2008. What a beautiful day. Finished the two remaining raspberry beds and prepared the Flower Bed. Well its actually going to have Globe Artichokes, Dahlias, Lavender and Begonias with Nasturiums, Forget Me Nots, Marigolds and other flowers at the front of the bed.
In terms of other flowers, the main path will have Wallflowers and Marigolds along the sides, and all the beds along the northern edge will have Rosemary. In the north east corner we'll have Dark Purple Buddleias and some Foxgloves, around and behind the coposters.
5th April 2008. Overdid it a bit yesterday, still now all the posts for the raspberries are concreted in and the first raspberry row has been planted up. (Two to go.) Also the the second potato bed is now planted. If I can do these raspberry rows then there's just one onion bed to do and I'm up-to-date.... for a couple of weeks.
29th March 2008. Well, it's starting for real. The timber for the raised beds has been delivered. So the structure of the allotment can be shaped. The first delivery of compost has also arrived.
The first pair of beds, one on each side of the main path, are in process - one done and planted with potatoes (before receiving the timber) and the other being properly set-up as a raised bed. This year, this will also be potatoes.
The next bed will need to be dug properly and manured for the main crop onions. Then the other crucial beds to be prepared are two beds for pole and runner beans; another bed of onions; and two beds for raspberries.
The rest of the ground can be allocated into beds, and covered with manure and membrane, ready for winter squashes and for brassicas.
Sounds simple and easy, well today didn't flow that well. I had to get netting and nails from the present allotment and I also forgot I had a lot of tools/ potatoes/ onions/ timber / membrane to take down there. So I overloaded myself trying to carry too much. OK I got into the swing of it but then I got caught with rain and the on the second squall I called it a day. The good news is that everything's ready for the morning.
And when I got home I was able to start an experiment - to try to grow ground-nuts (aka peanuts.)
25th March 2008. The digging has started, actually the first bed is in fact dug.
18th March 2008. Panic over they're 5 rod plots rather than 10 rods. So now there won't be the fruit trees. The dahias I'll already bought, the Globe Artichokes are already sown so I'll find space for them. There'll be no manure heap, no car space (I've already walked there and decided that I don't need a car),
12th March 2008. Cripes I've been offered two plots. So there we are. One plot is probably enough, two I can probably cope with, so there's a real challenge with three.
I think that the third plot is do-able if I make that one over virtually completely to fruit trees and bushes...and I've been given permission to do that. The whole allotment is bare grass with a few sheds at the moment, so trees and bushes would make it a lovely area and provide a useful wind-break.
15th Feb 2008. My new project is "growing all the time" combined with the style of the 'Lazy Man's allotment'. So I've applied for another plot, but it's got to be minimum work. The current plot is used to provide as wide a variety as possible for as long a growing period as possible ..... for the needs of the family.
This new plot will be oriented to having something growing all the time.... never having a bed 'fallow' or empty, never just sitting their waiting. Must be simple and straight-forward.
So me for the first thing is to get another role of permeable membrane and loads of pegs.
So if the plot is 24ft wide and 80ft long, then using 4ft wide beds (6ft wide including a path) that would give me 13 beds (78ft) each 24ft long. Say 7ms X 13 = 100m of membrane needed. Two pegs will be needed for every 1m of length (one each side) plus some for the ends, so say 250 pegs.
Then some compost, yeh, whatever I can get, by the lorry load, OLD. (May be use my own compost?) This time I'll leave a sacrifice bed at the start of the plot so that I have an area to drop lorry loads of manure onto.
So we've got 12 beds. Now to choose the crops:
- potatoes are a cert, clears the ground, no work once you've got them planted, always find a customer, and it looks the business. Definitely grow a full width bed of each of four varieties.- 4 beds - First early, second early, main crop, plus chipping and baking potatoes,
- main crop onions, yes a must, always find a customer, looks good, - 2 beds.
So we've got seven beds left, what do you suggest?
- dwarf beans, cover the ground, always find customer, but a lot of bending
- beetroot (one bed) some custom, doesn't look good, lasts for a long time
- runner beans, great for six months, will need lots of bamboos plus strong support
What else would you do that's simple and straightforward, may be a complete row of Rosemary all the way along the northern border so that we get a nice wind break (in the second year) plus flowers for the bees.