Hi - I haven't been here since 2008! - Karen and I keep tidy gardens for a living but I had a hip replacement recently so would like to share (click to enlarge) some pictures of our allotment from the last few years.
Most of our work these days is at "new build" over 55 / 60's sites where the ground is often half full of builders' junk and so it's a real pleasure to get over to the allotment where we get our best growing fix - the soil here's been worked since at least the dig for victory days.
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There are approx 40 plots on our site which is just nice, it's surrounded on all sides with back gardens and you can't see it from the entrance so we get very little trouble from veggie burglars.
I've cut the main grass here for a few years and yet people still wang rocks on there... so I cut high and it's been enough to stop someone coming in with a sprayer.
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But we love our allotment - the time can just fly by. Our first plot was 20ft x 100ft and the first thing we did was to put up four reinforced pallet bins, bolted together, one 6x4 and three 4x4. We fill the big one first, then turn this into the next one, then the next one until the last turn goes through a stout weld mesh riddle to get out the few sticks and stones. It is possible to have finished compost inside a month if you've the time and/or energy
What we wanted was not raised beds so much, but to have defined 3-4ft wide beds.
Around then, I made a timely mistake with an estimate on a turfing job and we got ourselves 12 narrow grass paths across the width, down the length of the plot. It looks a bit pretentious but it was (sort of) free and we have the petrol machines to keep it neat. This is from our early days - when I first got a camera:
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Our plot was getting a bit full up of flowers and we were running out of room – having the flowers gives us a lot of pleasure but we haven't got as many out to work as was the intention – so when the old couple next to us finally called it a day, we were very pleased to be given their plot – I'm not sure this is right when there's a waiting list but current plot holders get first shout, that's rules.
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This white Agapanthus we found in a pot underneath nettles at a garden clearance – we split it up and lined out 40 plantlets
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So this was our second plot, which we'd had for two years before getting it underway... one row of raspberries (at supermarket price) pays rent for both plots several times over - both plots together equal nearly 450 square yards and we pay £20 a year
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After the initial thorough dig and removing carpets, window frames, bindweed etc. we wanted to try the no dig method. I've read that just one teaspoon of rich garden soil can hold up to a billion bacteria, several yards of fungi, several thousand protozoa and scores of nematodes – we've plenty of material to use as mulch for the worms – and you can't find a better garden helper - they leave behind eight times more micro organisms than they eat and their castings are loaded with calcium, nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium and large amounts of humic acid, an excellent natural soil conditioner.
“Perceived as lowly, but actually holy, the earthworm feeds the soil, even it's waste, improves the taste, of every pea and bean”
Worms have survived mass extinctions over hundreds of millions of years while other species perished. It now appears it may be possible to figure out just how the land masses broke apart - and carrying the worms with them, drifted to far corners of the globe by studying the distribution of worm species – why, for example, Caribbean worms are closely related to those in Fiji.
