Water has been a topic of conversation down at the allotment.  Many plots have water butts on site, with the majority attached to shed or greenhouse guttering to maximise the collection efficiency.  We have just ordered a greenhouse and downpipes were a must have.  We are lucky in that there are taps on site, so all the plot holders have some capacity for counter-acting drought.

Hosepipes have always been banned for watering, although they could be used for filling containers including water butts.  Now they are completely banned meaning that all water from the taps has to be carried to plots.  In my opinion that is not a bad thing in terms of targeting watering, although it could be hard work for some of the less physically able plot holders.  The reason that I think that limited access to water could be a good thing is that when water is easy to apply we end up putting a lot on the surface of soil that will evaporate quickly in warm weather and can cause the surface structure to break down leaving a surface cap that prevents subsequent rain from draining down to the root area where it is actually needed.

We are experimenting with the use of inverted plastic bottles to help us to deliver water directly to the root area.  Once growth starts, these should be concealed, but at the moment it looks as though our main crop is plastic bottles.

Growing plastic bottles

Of course there is nothing like a good bank holiday downpour and yesterday was a great day in our neck of the woods for growers as the steady rain was not hard enough to cause surface capping or flooding, but lasted for long enough to have some chance of penetrating the upper layers of the soil, with a forecast of sunshine and showers for the rest of the week, this looks like good growing weather and we’ll be keeping a careful eye out for signs of life from our recent sowings.

The propagators and window sills at home have been doing sterling service over the last few weeks, but this week it has been time to start sowing outside.  We have not gone for very early sowing as the work we’ve been doing on getting the bed structure sorted out has limited the opportunities for warming the soil prior to sowing.  We have however used our mini polytunnel to warm up the roots bed and have got the first beetroot and carrot sowings in.  After the success of last year’s beetroot we have increased the amount that we are looking to grow this year and have also expanded the colour horizon with ‘Choggia’ ‘Burpees Golden’ joining last year’s winner ‘Boltardy’.

We’ve also got the main crop potatoes in and some of the earlies.  We are going with Rudolph again for main crop.  These not only eat well, but they have kept superbly, we are just about to finish off last year’s crop.  We are going for succession sowings of earlies to try to extend the cropping season as these are best eaten fresh rather than stored.  We are trying Piccolo Star this year after last year’s rather disappointing performance from Lady Christl and Charlotte – of course we later found out that new/early potatoes had been disappointing over much of the country last year due to the very dry early spring and the subsequent rather cold late spring and early summer.

Today was the anniversary of our first session on the allotment and as we have completed the building of the raised beds in the last couple of weeks and moved on to preparing the internal pathways (which we are going to grass) and an external pathway (weed suppressant membrane and bark chips) we thought it a good time for a before and after shot.

Looking South 5 March 2012

Despite the fact that we had more snow overnight, today marked the start of the growing season with the first chilli, aubergine and leek seeds of the year starting to sprout.

With the past couple of summers being fairly dismal we have had no luck with aubergines. This year we are going to try to grow them to quite a substantial size indoors then harden some off for outdoor growing and bring some on in the greenhouse.

It snowed heavily overnight, so we walked down to the allotment to take some pictures.  This also provided scope for a pub stop on the way home- always a treat on a Sunday lunchtime!

A snowbound plot

 

Snowball on the way

We spent the middle portion of today down at the allotment and have got the next two raised beds built and more of the weed suppressant membrane down.  We also did some odds and ends of tidying up and set a bonfire.  We’ve got two beds to go and the greenhouse to get in and then all our growing spots will be done.  There will be further infrastructure to go in (a second compost bin a tool store and a bench) but it is now very clear how the plot is developing – and it is looking good.

We have also prepared a master plan as a spreadsheet that shows all the hard features and allows us to keep track of the contents of each bed over the years so that we can manage crop rotation properly.

Allotment Plan 2012