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The Organic Allotment’s Blog
February 2012 M T W T F S S « Feb 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
Digging the dirt – Greenwich allotment rent increases
The price of growing fruit and veg is set to soar – our borough allotments have recently caught the media spotlight, as the council plan to raise the annual cost for a full plot from £67 to £200. Some allotment holders face even steeper rises.
In the current climate, we all need to make sacrifices and price hikes are now an everyday occurrence. To segregate a minority with such an outrageous increase is downright daylight robbery!
Other recreational facilities in the borough are entitled to a subsidy and limited to a rise in prices between 3% and 4% – the price hikes in question equate to over 300%!
A consultation on increasing allotment rents is part of a £72,000 Greenwich Council budget proposal. The Council is currently in discussion with allotment holders to finalise proposals.
An alarming fact – “As far as I can tell, £200 for a 10 rod plot would make Greenwich Council’s allotments the most expensive council run allotments in the country.”
There are a couple of websites to view on this contentious topic, as below:
http://www.allotments4all.co.uk
http://www.amateurgardening.com
The Organic Allotment’s Blog - We’re in the Garden 2011
Crop Rotation
After trawling the internet looking for the best solution on crop rotation, I decided the best advice was found on the Royal Horticultural Society website.
The principle of crop rotation is to grow specific groups of vegetables on a different part of the vegetable plot each year. This helps to reduce a build-up of crop-specific pest and disease problems and it organises groups of crops according to their cultivation needs.
Crop rotation is used in allotment plots and kitchen gardens for most annual vegetable crops. Perennial vegetables (such as rhubarb and asparagus) do not fit into the rotation. Certain annual crops such as cucurbits (courgettes, pumpkins, squashes, marrows and cucumbers), French and runner beans, salads (endive, lettuce and chicory) and sweetcorn can be grown wherever convenient, merely avoiding growing them too often in the same place.
Plan your crop rotation before the growing season starts, and mark out the plots on the ground so you know where to plant each crop.
Divide your vegetable garden or allotment into sections of equal size (depending on how much of each crop you want to grow), plus an extra section for perennial crops, such as rhubarb and asparagus. Group your crops as below:
* Brassicas: Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, kohl-rabi, oriental greens, radish, swede, turnips and Broccoli.
* Legumes: Pea, broad beans – French and runner beans suffer from fewer soil problems and can be grown wherever convenient.
* Onions: Onion, garlic, shallot, leek.
* Potato family: Potato, tomato, (pepper and aubergine suffer from fewer problems and can be grown anywhere in the rotation).
* Roots: Beetroot, carrot, celeriac, celery, Florence fennel, parsley, parsnip and all other root crops, except swedes and turnips, which are brassicas.
Move each section of the plot a step forward every year so that, for example, brassicas follow legumes, onions and roots, legumes, onions and roots follow potatoes and potatoes follow brassicas.
So this is my draft on what we intend to grow in each of the 8 mini plots – Guys please let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions, as this is very much a work in progress model……
The Organic Allotment’s Blog - We’re in the Garden 2011
Posted in Allotment
Tagged Agriculture, Brassica, Crop rotation, Horticulture, Legume, Royal Horticultural Society, Soil, Vegetable
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The road to hell is paved with good intentions…
Since my last post, another year has come and gone…
We were well into the summer when we got our little patch of overgrown wasteland, and to be brutally honest, the impulse to dig over the land in the scorching heat was soon lost to barbeques in the garden and the misery of the world cup.
‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man!’
With renewed vigour (and the prospect of reaping the rewards of the land), in January we set to work on turning our patch of wasteland into a fully cultivated allotment, which would give us bountiful supplies of fresh seasonal fruit and veg.
Our plot was overgrown with tall grass to the rear and some nettle roots poking up towards the front. A wet Saturday with a pitch fork soon put paid to the nettle roots, and after hiring a petrol lawn mower, the grass was soon down to a manageable height.
The next step was wrestling with a Rotivator, which to be honest, was a very heavy and cumbersome machine especially in the wet boggy grass! Nevertheless, perseverance and a hard day’s graft left the grassy landscape transformed into a dark brown, muddy patch of land.
We decided to partition our plot into 8 manageable sections with some old patio slabs from our garden. This allowed us to dig over a section at a time, removing any weeds, roots, glass bottles, cans, and car tyres (I kid you not) that had been buried over the years. We also had a walkway between our small plots, which stopped us treading on and flattening the previously dug ground.
So this is it, as it currently stands..from grassy wasteland to muddy plots…
The Organic Allotment’s Blog - We’re in the Garden 2011
Posted in Allotment
Tagged Allotment, Gardens, Grass, Home and Garden, Lawn, Lawn mower, Nettle, Organic, Plot (narrative), Recreation and Sports
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Urban Jungle
We paid our first visit to the Allotment last night and here it is – Plot 9B – our very own Urban Jungle. The locals seemed to be a very friendly bunch and we soon got deep into conversation about our overgrown patch of wasteland.
Our plot hasn’t been touched since the dawn of time and is prone to flooding during severe weather conditions, but we are determined to make this our Garden of Eden. We hope it will provide sumptuous fruits and a rich crop of vegetables in time.
The Organic Allotment’s Blog - We’re in the Garden 2011
Posted in Allotment
Tagged Allotments, Gardens, Home and Garden, Paris, Recreation and Sports, video player, Wildlife, Wired (magazine)
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The Good Life!
The Good Life!
On his 40th birthday to be precise, Tom Good decides that he’s had enough of the rat race and that he and wife Barbara will become self-sufficient. The pair convert their garden into a farm, get in the pigs and chickens, grow their own crops and on one memorable occasion, try to dye their own wool with nettles.
Well I am not quite 40 yet, but the idea of growing my own fruit and vegetables has appealed to me over the last few years, especially with the current media trend of promoting seasonal, organic and healthy produce (my personal favourites being James Martin, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Valentine Warner and Jaime Oliver).
So, having recently bought a new property with a good size garden, a stones throw from my local allotment, I contacted the local council to enquire about a plot of land… As luck would have it, I got a phone call last week and have secured plot 9B!!! And so our adventure begins…
I have enlisted the support of my other half and my twin boys, who are all bursting at the seems to get digging, ploughing and planting (or as they put it – ‘what choice have we got dad? ’). I will keep you updated on all our progress over the coming months as we try to recreate The Good Life.
The Organic Allotment’s Blog - We’re in the Garden 2011
Posted in General
Tagged Gardens, Good Life, Gordon Ramsay, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Jamie Oliver, North Sea, River Cottage, Valentine Warner
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