Six on Saturday – 28/9/2024

Categories Allotment & vegetable growing, six on saturday33 Comments on Six on Saturday – 28/9/2024

It was April 1st 2013 that I first took on an allotment, plot 6. In August 2014 my employment came to an abrupt end and I have a photograph from 11th September 2014 showing my second plot with the grass yellowing, presumably having been sprayed with weedkiller a week or so earlier. I took it on because I was nurturing the idea of setting myself up in business as a nursery and I wanted somewhere to accommodate a lot of Camellia plants that would be my propagation stock. The plants got planted but the nursery never happened and most of the Camellias ended up in the National Collection at Mount Edgcumbe.

Yesterday, just over ten years later, I dug the last of the camellias and emptied what remained in the tunnel. I have relinquished plot 3 and have only one plot to my name, number 6. Knowing it was coming, I have erected a polytunnel on plot 6, a little larger than the one I’ve left behind on 3, and I’ve brought back under control a sizeable chunk of plot 6 that frankly I hadn’t been able to cope with while I had two plots on the go.

It feels like a renewal. I’m back on top of one plot rather than being beaten down by two. I enjoy allotment gardening, it’s so completely different from the garden. There, most things are perennial and most of the activity is above ground, dealing with the plants. The soil, by and large, takes care of itself. On the allotment the focus is very much on keeping the soil in the best possible condition. Achieve that and the plants will hopefully produce the crops that I want without my having to do much more than to sow or plant them. I have my own idiosyncratic ways of doing things and recently added the category “Allotment soil management” so that if anyone is interested in the fairly steep learning curve that has been involved they can find the relevant posts easily. It is my plan to do posts about the allotment more often.

I have done a few blogs from the allotment but not I think, an entire six on saturday. That’s what I’m going to do today. As always, if you are minded to join the SoS meme, there is a participant’s guide here. Joining in is easy, it’s getting enough going on in your garden to find six things a week for the whole year that tests our contributors imagination and mettle.

One.
Plot 3.

The last two pictures of plot 3, taken yesterday. The tunnel emptied of tomatoes, cucumbers, a dahlia, some plants in pots and a fair bit of junk. And the gate, which I made, hanging from the gate post which was the top of a power pole that was replaced on the allotment site.

Two.
The tunnel on plot 6. Bought new from FirstTunnels and finished a few weeks ago. I’m probably going to grow more crops in it, currently I have winter salad crops like radish, mizuna and lettuce growing away well. I’ve just planted some spring cabbage, aiming for an early crop. Then there will be various things in pots that are being protected for the winter or in some way in production for use in the garden next year. The challenge is not to use it as a convenient dumping ground, more pressing now I only have one plot to dump into. The bagged camellias in the centre are heading for the Mt Edgcumbe collection, very soon.

Three.
Where my approach to growing differs most obviously from the rest of the plot holders on the site is in how I get through winter. I am of the opinion that my soil is silty and that its carefully nurtured structure is fragile and needs protecting as much as possible. The last thing I want is bare ground in winter; ideally I want overwintering crops, failing that I want cover crops like ryegrass, clover, Phacelia, and failing that I want a generous layer of plant material as mulch. In practice it’s a messy mix, I leave in plants like foxgloves to be part of the cover crop palette, I spread shredded plant material around well spaced crops like brassicas, I will plant cell grown cover crops into odd spaces and into mulched areas.

Four.
When the site was set up, the water trough by plot 3 was the only source of water. As more plots were taken on it became clear that taking the supply down to the more distant plots would be essential but I had by then put up a shed and been given a couple of IBC’s to collect the rainwater from the roof. Having installed the new tunnel at the top of the slope on my plot, I rigged up a system to collect rainwater from one side of it. I just couldn’t resist, it’s a much bigger area than the shed roof. I have a battery pump with which I can either water the tunnel or pump water into the IBC’s from the barrel. It all works a treat, as does the tap that is about five yards away.

Five.
Plot 6 has not had enough input for the last few years but only one area had fallen into total neglect. It was the are where I had my compost heaps and at the time there nettles growing around and into the heaps. Then I stopped composting and the nettles took over. They are gone, I took ten sacks of roots to the council recycling centre. They will no doubt attempt a comeback but I’m ready for them. In the meantime I have planted strawberries. I will start working through the potted junk by the tunnel, much of it will get dumped.

Six.
At the other end of plot 6 is my fruit cage. It takes time for blueberries to get to a decent size and be really productive but once they do they are terrific. The crop comes steadily over several weeks and is of a monetary value that pays the rent on the plot by itself. Blackcurrants also do very well and we have a freezer drawer full of them, plus jam in the cupboard. Raspberries have been a failure, they’ve largely died out, and gooseberries always get hit so hard by sawfly that I wonder why I bother to grow them. I will probably fill all available space with strawberries but I have a nettle problem in the fruit cage that needs tackling. It’s hard when they’re growing in the base of multistemmed berry bushes.

Normal service will be resumed next week, I shall be back in the garden and the allotment can have posts of its own. Makes a change though, and I’ve spent far more time up there for the last month than in the garden. The header passion flower is in the garden not the allotment.

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Published by Jim Stephens

Gardener, no-dig allotmenteer, camellia enthusiast. I love colour, it cheers me up. Retired nurseryman.

33 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – 28/9/2024”

  2. What an interesting post, Jim – I really enjoyed reading it. I get the impression that the allotment site is fairly new, judging by the adjacent areas? Well done on making the decision to drop the one plot which, by the weight lifted from your shoulders, is clearly the right one. I am very impressed by your water collection and distribition! Thank you for giving us the lowdown 👍 https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2024/09/28/six-on-saturday-not-hedging-my-bets/

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      4. Far from it, another site had opened a few miles away a couple of years earlier and most people who wanted an allotment had gone there. After a couple of years they didn’t want to start again, even if it was much nearer.

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  4. Plot 6 is really shaping up beautifully, lots of hard work. I can understand why you would want to focus on one and do it very well. I like the watering re-do. Do you have to heat this in the winter, or does the cover do the work for that?

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    1. Are you meaning will I need to heat the tunnel? The answer is no, it doesn’t get really cold here, normally just a few nights over the winter when it drops just below freezing, so I don’t put things in the tunnel that will get damaged by that. Polythene is a poor insulator but the tunnel will trap heat by day and hopefully hold enough to get through the nights a little warmer than outside.

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    1. Pleased and relieved to see you posting this week, I wasn’t sure which side of Florida you were and the pictures from the west side that I’ve seen are horrendous. Puts any resolve I have into perspective, that’s for sure.

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  7. Reminds me of my allotment gardens in Seattle.Our city plots were too small for structures, or even permanent plants, though most gardens did have shared plantings of currants, blueberries, raspberries, even plum and fig. The city run program required plots to be growing at all times, either crop or cover crop. There, we used crimson clover in winter and buckwheat in summer. It is where I got my love of buckwheat, which I still use in my garden, but not in the “till it in” method that was advocated by the P-Patch Program. I am a chop and drop person, and as you have seen, I only cut down what is in my way. The flower flies love it so, and I don’t even have to plant it anymore, as it self seeds. Snow is my winter cover crop now. I cut down vegetables, leaving the roots in place and leave anything with seed heads, stalks of native plants etc all winter to help nurture insects and birds with the seeds. I miss having winter greens year round, but I can grow a better tomato here. Still harvesting monsters that are pushing a kilo or so. Honestly, I can’t believe that everyone doesn’t grow their own vegetables. They taste so much better than grocery store fare. Even courgette, which is kind of bland, is noticeably tastier. Fun to see your project! I had a busy week, so no post from me. I blame the shortening daylight hours! I will be proactive and take pictures this week for next. Soon it will be fall color pictures, as trees are beginning to turn.

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  10. Pingback: Six on Saturday: 28 September 2024 – My Tiny Welsh Garden

    1. Mypex, (other woven polypropylene materials are available). I fold a metre wide piece lengthways into three, then lay it with the folded bits down facing, securing with a giant staple made from 4mm galvanized wire. It goes across the whole width or 1/3m, rather than through it. Slugs hide under it and pay the price for being predictable.

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  17. That was really interesting Jim, you sound totally energised! You must be feeling much better than last week. Good to hear. I am interested in your water capture system, one of my clients has just purchased a large polytunnel. Totally with you on the soil management, I will be following what you have to say about it. Fabulous. Oh, and here are mine https://offtheedgegardening.com/2024/09/28/six-on-saturday-the-green-side/

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    1. When I was working on THAT nursery and we had huge polytunnels, it used to piss me off mightily that all the lovely clean rainwater that fell on them went down the drain. The drain led into a soakaway and we had a borehole at the bottom of the hill below it, so I imagine some of it ended up getting pumped back up for irrigation water. I wanted to rig things up so it gravity fed into a reservoir on the nursery and only needed pumping once. Storage volume is the Achilles heel to most of these schemes.

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  18. You sell the blueberries?! That is pretty cool. I have never seen that many blueberries. They do not perform well here. I recently acquired two specimens, but do not expect much from them. Besides, I am not so keen on blueberries. In some pictures, the parcels do not seem to be very big, but in other pictures, there seems to be quite a bit growing there. Check out the date in the second sentence. I believe that it should be 2014. These are my six.

    https://tonytomeo.com/2024/09/28/six-on-saturday-copy-machine/

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    1. I don’t sell the blueberries, if we can’t eat them quickly enough I will give a few away but we can get through outrageous quantities without any help. The point I was making was that it would cost a small fortune to buy the same amount from the shops, they must have to be handpicked, unlike blackcurrants which I believe are now machine harvested, since they ripen all at once and whole branches can be cut and go through a machine. I don’t see how they could do that with blueberries. The plot is 20 x 10m. Thanks for pointing out the date, I have corrected it.

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      1. Oh, I did not consider that because I do not like blueberries enough to purchase them. I know that I should grow more in the garden for those who like them, but they really do not perform very well here. They are even less happy farther inland.

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