I love my allotment! / Tips for max productivity?

[2ndRateMind]

The title says it all, really. After 4 or 5 weeks of 4 mornings per week, I've lost weight, got fitter, found a hobby, met loads of great new people, and stopped drinking more than is good for me. (Well, almost!)

Now, having discovered that allotmenteering suits me fine, I'd like to move onto the next phase. Nearest to self-sufficiency one can get to with a 180M2 plot of land.

Your advice is all most welcome.

Thanks, 2RM.

[grahamhobbs]

Perhaps not the ideas you were looking for, but from my experience these are the best tips I can give to successfully keeping an allotment
1. feed the soil with as much compost or manure as you can, lay on top as a mulch
2. don't dig the soil except to remove pernicious weeds such as couch and bindweed (try to remove roots as much as possible)
3. Mulching will minimise weeds, but don't allow any that appear to seed
4. keep any grass well mown and edges well trimmed - to minimise slugs
5. Sow direct only those that slugs tend not to bother with - leeks, parsnips, beetroot
6. Sow and raise plants in modules and pots away from slugs. Only plant out when sizeable and well hardened off. (Slugs and insects always go for the weakest, young or sickly, plants)
7. Don't plant out anything without providing protection against wildlife, eg. pigeons. Other wildlife like squirrels and mice can be very difficult to protect against, so if a problem in your area you may have to forego some vegetables. Insects are not usually a big problem with healthy plants but expect trouble with carrot fly and blackfly on broad beans.
8. If you can get enough compost (many councils now give their municipal compost free to allotments), compost both beds and paths
9. Don't plant perennials such as asparagus, artichokes or soft fruit before you have eliminated the pernicious weeds
10. Get a polytunnel to extend your seasons and enable you to grow tomatoes free from blight
11. Whatever you do, do it regularly, it needs attention every week at least
12. Don't get disheartened when things don't go well, think about why, learn, improve and go on enjoying the experience

[Flo]

Only grow what you like to eat.

If you like things that cost a lot of money down shop, then grow those.

Invest in some good reference books for basic knowledge. The Vegetable and Herb Expert is a well respected base book that is on most people' shelf. The RHS Allotment Handbook and The Allotment Handbook by Caroline Foley are both popular and well respected books.

Not everything you do will prosper and there will be seasons when the weather is against you. Experience helps. Remember it's a hobby not your main job and that it will never cover all the food that you need but it will help.

Buy well with what you buy in the way of tools. Don't buy cheap seeds, buy in sales for the next year. Remember that seeds (with the exception of parsnips) will last a bit longer than the date on the packet even if they don't all germinate a year later (who needs 1200 carrots in a packet anyway).

[Carltonian Man]

Nourish the whole plot with a drench of compost tea which will put back the good bacteria killed off by previous tenants’ use of chemical fertiliser.
Mix half a shovel of good home-made compost and one or two tablespoons of molasses (black treacle) in five gallons of rainwater. Stir vigorously every now and then throughout the day or fill a watering can with the mix and pour it back in from a height to keep oxygen levels up.
The aerobic bacteria rely on oxygen and in the right environment will double every 20 minutes so after 24 hours the mix should be sufficiently rich to treat one acre. You can’t overdose with this stuff.
The bacteria render nutrients so they are available to plants and unlike chemical feed are likely to stay in the soil during prolonged periods of heavy rain.

[citizentwiglet]

Just to add to your reading list, I absolutely love John Harrison's 'Vegetable Growing Month by Month'. It's not big, or glossy, but it's really well written, easy to follow, and I use it more than any other book in my (pretty vast) gardening library.

Also, consider getting yourself a wormery for your allotment. Worm cast is marvellous stuff.

Plan, plan, plan. Make sure that when you are planting out hardened off plants that you a) don't plant too many at once so you get a glut and b) that you have some in reserve for filling in gaps caused by pesky slugs/rabbits/pigeons etc. Try to plan it so you have successional sowings / plants ready to go into the allotment beds to replace those you take out, so your crops last the season.

Keep a journal - what you've sown, and where. Crop rotation plans, sacrificial planting/companion planting plans, how well you think your crops are doing, what the weather is like, when the frosts are, what directions the winds come from. Spend a day at the allotment and chart how the sun moves across the plot so you can plant things where they'll like them best.

You'll make mistakes - everyone does. Some varieties will do better than others, some years will be more productive than others, just don't beat yourself up if things go 'wrong'. Everyone, even the most experienced gardeners, make mistakes. As long as you don't take it too seriously, and not consider it a failing if you have to nip to the shops for carrots or whatever, then it's great fun learning and experimenting.

[GeorgeSalt]

Only grow what you like to eat.

Just to reinforce this point.. there's nothing less productive than the prolific growth of something you don't eat or don't have another use for!

It also helps to have a useful measure. Yield (in kg or lb) is a very poor measure of self-sufficiency, a better one would be to understand your baseline grocery spend, identify which elements of that you can't be self-sufficient in (meat, milk, sugar, flour, salt, etc.) and then have a reverse target for those thing you could have grown/produced yourself. That way you're less focussed on being a rhubarb-millionaire, and have a greater focus on never buying a carrot/onion/bean/etc. again.

[boboff]

From my perspective also, you could further George's advice by only growing things which are relatively expensive, asparagus, Strawberries, Garlic, soft fruit, Beans, etc, Potatoes are 30p a kilo, Carrots 75p a kilo, Onions £1, by focusing on items which you buy which are expensive, then factor in yield and labour, chuck in the waiting time for perennials, but less work load as time goes on, and you get a sort of Algebraic equation to follow, sort of,

Yield(x)Space(x)Hrs to plant/maintain/pick(x)£/kg(/) probability of failure of crop experessed as a decimal of the %(+)Specific additional costs of crop(eg protection, specific manure etc) (-) £42.60 if a Raspberry Cane.

It's great to hear you so enthusiastic, well done mate!

[2ndRateMind]

Wow! Thanks all, for your condensed wisdom. I shall be taking your advice as time/budget/enthusiasms allow. I'll keep you informed!

Cheers, 2RM.

[narmour]

A specific tip for slug control... Look up nematode slug control agents. These are organic treatments of nematodes which target the slugs under the ground before they hatch. I used it this year and I haven't seen a single slug on my 100m2 plot. It's not cheap at £60 for a whole growing season (3 £20 applications which last about 6 weeks each but it's liquid gold when you factor in the amount of money you spend on seedlings which get munched, lost soft fruit and also has the bonus of being entirely organic and harmless to kids and wild life.