Anyone with an allotment?

If it ain’t great, you could dry it and hang it up for the birds in winter.

Pulled up the tomatoes and beans today, the chillis seem to be having a second flush so might leave them another week although I do kinda want those beds cleared for digging over this week.
Pruned a plum and got one bed fully dug over as well.
Not bad for a couple of hours, does feel good to start clearing, I’m sure a few plants would have kept going but I’d rather just call it and get ready for winter now.

Do sweet peppers ripen off the plant? (A novice writes)

I’m wondering that about chillis as well…

I’ve gone back to the ground. Could be a big mistake. We shall see.

Pak Choi and broadbeans in. Waiting for the garlic to arrive.

Then need to have an apocalyptic sized fire. So much rotten wood.

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Chillies dont

I’ve gone back to the ground. Could be a big mistake.

What does this mean? Looks good and tidy, whatever you've done.

Woooo soil. 1.5m^3 of the good stuff.

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Gonna rest these back beds over winter with all that lovely fresh soil

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Getting there.
Will prob get another 1m^3 of soil for the 2 beds in the foreground. This load covered 3 beds, mounded the Xmas spuds and topped up a small bed.

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And home before it started chucking it down.

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I’ve used pallets for raised beds for the last 2 years and they’ve all rotted. So binning them off and will be going no dig over the whole plot. But minus the raised beds.

If I could afford them I’d get these, well snazzy. I’m pretty sure you can buy all the components separately and make custom shapes. I’m happy enough in the ground. Our plot is about 150m uphill from the carpark and I don’t fancy shifting the amount of soil required to fill raised beds.

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Charles Dowding advises against raised beds as it give slugs and snails more places to hide. I use them just because they’re helpful for sectioning up my plot. And I think it makes the council think I’m working the plot so they pester me less.

Found a few of these in the dump area at work so will be making a few more raised beds soon.

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Those pallet edges are cool, there’s a couple of old boys on our site with a bunch of them but they all have that blue paint like the pallets on them that just flake everywhere.

Before and after tidying the compost bays. Might do the other one tomorrow.

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Confused strawberry and bean plants producing new fruit in October.

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Phwoar.
I accept woodchip(there’s membrane under) might not be the ideal surface for in front of the compost but fucking hell it’s better than it was. Thinking a nice long planter to screen it off might be in order.

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Not quite as extreme but I've got a 2nd crop of raspberry

Now that corner is sorted I’m shocked how much space is back there, that right hand bed is crying out for a greenhouse I reckon. Would obscure the ugly clubhouse and compost heap. It gets light from the back in the morning and again in the afternoon but the building does block some light in the middle of the day.

There are better places for it but this would be the least obtrusive and hopefully I’ll be able to persuade the allotment officer to let me have it. Strictly speaking it’s shed OR greenhouse on a plot my size.
Seems silly as I can have a polytunnel as well but to me it makes more sense to put up a second hand greenhouse that’ll last forever as opposed to a polytunnel that’ll blow away/disintegrate eventually.

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So the allotment officer has denied me a small greenhouse, such is life and rules is rules.

Of course, the rules say nothing about the size of cloche/hoop house I’m allowed ;)
I never thought of myself as petty but looking forward to seeing how this plays out….

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Onions/garlic went in today as well. The mixed onions 500g from seedsofitaly seemed really good value and no manky/dried out bulbs at all.

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Stonkingly good weather up the plot today, surprisingly a few people up there though.
Tidied up some paths, put some carrots out.

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💪🏻

Inspirational stuff fella, I’ve only just about got on top of the garden.

Thanks, we don’t have a garden so no excuse for the plot not looking on point.

We took last week off work to nail the post summer tidy and reset. Totally worth it.
Was chatting to one of our neighbours who introduced us to the concept of growing purely for barter over winter instead of cover crops. Plant random shit even if not your favourite eating as it can always be dug in if you can’t give it away. Will still be resting/covering a few beds but might sow a few more random bits.

They also confirmed our new tunnel doesn’t count as a structure so we might whack another one in at some point if I can find a bit more water pipe locally for cheap.