Winter 2024

My partner and I have recently taken on an allotment here in Canterbury. While I’m not totally new to allotments—my mum took one on when I was a teenager—this will be my first attempt without “supervision”. My partner has no allotment experience, but she grew veg with her father as a child. We’d like to grow some of the veg we enjoy most, I’d like some cut flowers, and we’d both like some oddities which are hard to get from the supermarket.

What we’ve taken on

It is a half-plot, which measures 5 perch (125sqm), there’s some minor existing infrastructure from the previous holder:

• A almost completely de-glazed greenhouse frame
• An old poly tunnel frame which was used to net fruit bushes
• A strawberry patch constructed as a raised bed
• A pile of misc short bits of wood, metal, and a lot of plastic sheeting

The plot is overgrown with couch grass and raspberry canes. At the back of the plot there is a significant pile of plastics and waste. There is an existing small compost bin, but is very undersized for a plot this large.

The first task is clearing weeds and rubbish!

November progress

I’ve cleared weeds across about half the plot and dug over maybe 15% (including the greenhouse). The grass is quite difficult to remove, it sends out rhizomes underground which will sprout more grass if not fully removed. We call it couch grass. Every time I turn over a fork of soil, I then need to dig through by hand to collect all the spaghetti-like rhizomes. The rhizomes are very brittle and only a tiny bit will allow more grass to grow. It’ll probably take me a few years to get on top of it.

My partner and I have cleared out the greenhouse and dug it over too. Apparently, it was glazed with plastic which has not survived the winds. We have found we can probably get some used greenhouse glass cheaply on Facebook Marketplace, so we’ll re-glaze it with glass in the spring.

With the things left behind by the previous holders of the plot, my partner has made a couple of quick compost heaps.

My partner has cleared her way to the west boundary. We have filled 10 black sacks with rubbish to take to the local tip so far. Most of it was a poly-tunnel cover which had severely deteriorated in the sun/elements and was just festering microplastics everywhere. We also found an old air bed which we think was being used to suppress weeds. Allotments here have a strong ‘reuse and make do’ ethos, which I really like, but unfortunately it can sometimes go over the edge into just storing rubbish. We’re going to do our best to avoid plastics where we can, especially ones which will perish quickly in the sun.

We broke down the old strawberry patch, pulled up the weed proof membrane, and have begun digging that over too.

The soil from under the membrane is quite poor. It is very heavy clay with little life left except couch grass rhizomes, there aren’t even many worms. Hopefully this winter I’ll be able to mulch at least this portion of the allotment with well-rotted manure to improve the soil.

Storm Bert

Storm Bert did some damage to our fence at home, and blew over the almost de-glazed greenhouse. In hindsight, I should have known leaving a couple of panels of glass/polycarbonate in the greenhouse frame would be a mistake—what little glass remained acted as an effective sail, causing the greenhouse to blow over and fold in half. It collapsed onto the adjacent polytunnel frame, which buckled even further out of shape but did protect the established fruit bushes from damage.

After the storm passed, I went back up to inspect the damage. Thankfully, it’s worse than it looks. Greenhouses are made of surprisingly sturdy aluminium extrusions, and while a few bits were bent a little, the greenhouse went back together quite easily over an hour of faff. A few screws were missing (which I knew about before the storm) and the roof was extremely wobbly as a result. A previous tennant of the plot had wired parts of the frame together with thick horticultural wire, but it is not really the same as proper nuts and bolts. Thankfully, a pack of 50 greenhouse bolts is £6 from Amazon–so I have also bolted it back together more securely.

A task for this winter is to re-build the greenhouse base. The existing base is made of 2×4 batons and 2×2 stakes which have all but rotted completely through. The greenhouse was originally screwed to that base with wood screws, but when I try putting new screws in after re-building the greenhouse on the base, the screws push into the rotton wood with my thumb, and come out just as easily. I am unsure exactly what my plans are for the base, there’s a trade off between longevity and cost. The more expensive but very secure option is to build a 4×4 oak frame secured to the ground with big ground screws. But then, part of the fun of allotment-ing is doing stuff on the cheap: so I might re-use some 3×12 boards which were part of the old strawberry patch I’ve dug out. The bottom half of those boards have rotten through, but there’s still plenty of good wood left.

Plans for the Spring

At home, we have a 5ft × 7ft (1.5m × 2.1m) shed, which we store bikes and gardening equipment in. It is in a part of the garden which is best suited for a greenhouse, and while we’re pleased that there’s a greenhouse at the allotment, we’d like one at home too. To that end, we’re going to get a smaller bike shed for home and relocate our 5×7 shed to the allotment where space has been cleared under west boundary. This plan will let us re-use our shed, make space for a greenhouse, and provide a shed at the allotment all at once!

Some things we will want to plant out directly, like onions and carrots, but others (especially flowers) will need to be grown in seed-trays. So we will need to rebuild the greenhouse base, and re-glaze it ready for seedlings to get started in the early spring. I’m hoping to get this done over the winter, but the days are short and the weather can be terrible, so time will tell if I manage this.

I would like to mostly grow in raised beds, but I’m a little concerned about the costs. Timber prices shot up around 2022 with the start of the current war in Ukraine, and haven’t really gone back down. We’re going to try and buy used scaffolding boards to make the sides of the raised beds, but at about £15 per 3m scaffolding board, and with a desire to make 3×1.5×0.5 beds, it’ll be about £90 for the sides alone and another £20-ish for the corner posts, per raised bed! That cost is not in the spirit of cheap gardening that allotments promote.

Reference books

On the recommendation of my mum I’ve picked up a couple of reference books, which happily I found in the local charity shop. Namely, The Vegetable and Herb Expert and The Fruit Expert, both by D. G. Hessayon, totalling only £4! I remember that mum found the Vegetable Expert very useful when she started on her allotment, and now I’m a bit older I can see why. It’s full of useful information about planting, but more importantly about common pests, how to identify them, and how to treat them. This will be invaluable while getting started at the allotment especially as pests are more rampant on allotments than in gardens. With so many novices growing such a variety of plants in a tight space, and with varying levels of hygeine, disease is inevitable. Hopefully these books will help us identify and treat problems quickly, or, failing that, help us at least understand what went wrong if a crop fails.