Anyone with an allotment?

The range of gardening styles is my favourite part of our site.
Sometimes I feel guilty for wasting space when I see the plots that are turned over up to the very edge of the boundary, no paths and planted out dig for victory style. At the same time I love that ours is mostly productive but still feels a bit like a garden.
Really want to get a bit of an outside kitchen on the go eventually.

The weeds on the abandoned plot opposite are up to head height now. Takes the piss that the allotment officer won’t issue first warnings until July/august. Pretty annoying tbh.

Yeah we have an old Turkish lady whose whole plot is just potatoes and a guy who just grows maize.

Got my plot 10 days ago.

Happy with the progress so far...

Slashed weeds from head height to ground height with a sickle

Sourced some pallets, built a very rough-and-ready 2-bay compost bin and piled it full of the cleared stuff

Bartered for a giant bit of black plastic to cover a third of the plot and let the weeds die underneath

Pruned the hedge overhanging the plot, a bit - need to do much more still

Bought some timber and built 3 raised beds

Harvested some of the preexisting rhubarb and made a top notch crumble

All very satisfying. Obvs still a long way to go

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Solid!

That’s a damn good start! Chapeau!
Sometimes I wish I had a big area to clear and start working on! Run out of landscaping projects now lol.

Great work! Looks like a nice spot

We've got an overgrown plot we're converting to raised beds for the elders on the plot. It's an absolute forest but I'm free tomorrow so I'm going to make a start. I love clearing, it's so satisfying.

I love clearing, it's so satisfying.

The very best bit of gardening. At our previous house, our neighbour's garden was very unruly and, as part of putting a new fence in between us, she let us clear out most of it. A day well spent.

Realised we’d left some keys up the plot so rode up just now and watched the sun set.
Saw the juvenile foxes bowling around having a laugh on one of the overgrown plots.

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@lemonade Strong start, brilliant work.

I just popped up with the dog to de-slug and tie the beans in properly. Met some new plot owners and had a nice chat about their plans. The enthusiasm is infectious.

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Thanks for kind comments all.

What I've done so far is the easy bit, not involving spades or slugs. No doubt plenty of back pain and slime trail disappointment still to come!

That being said I am still very excited. 5 years of waiting has made me extremely eager

I was blessed with a day pass from the family to get the final bits in - tomatillos, the spare tomatos and sweetpeas. Trying an experiment with the toms by planting them in compost bags to hopefully conserve some of the water. Ran out of canes so used some old netting and fence posts for the peas. Cleared the crazy tall grass and nettles which had engulfed the berries. Totes satisfying day.

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Busy day:
Weeded the onion bed and sowed more inbetween the rows, melon, daikon, salad and beetroot sown.
Turned out we had enough junk lying around and some really fine mesh to cover the brassicas.
Tidied the shed, strimmed and planted out all the leftover plugs of flowers and herbs from the trays.

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Managed to strim and cardboard this area. It was about 4/5 ft high with weeds for perspective.

Going to put two beds in, just don’t know what to plant.

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Weeded the area on one of our community plots around a sunken bath tub pond. This has absolutely no plants in it. Looked at the overgrown forest we need to clear on the plot opposite and spotted a container pond on it with a massive lily. Took a bit of brute force but I managed to unweld it from the container and chuck it in the bath tub. House across the road has had massive rocks dumped outside it for over a year so grabbed them to go around the pond and provide hidy holes for the frogs.

Simon then broke my allotment key in the lock so took that as a sign to stop for the day.

Is sowing between onion rows a thing or just an experiment - I love the idea of these companion beds that can double up. I was just reading to underplant my beans with turnips.
Also I really think your flowers make such a difference. Next year my goal is to wild flower bomb/foxglove/delphinium the heck out of all the unused areas.

It’s mostly an experiment. The sets we planted in spring have been a bit peaky throughout so the hope is these will make up some shortfall if the main crop isn’t good enough for storing. Couldn’t think of a better crop to put inbetween and didn’t have space to put more onions in elsewhere.
The gaps need weeding often enough so figured there may as well be something useful in there. It’s probably a bit late to have sown them but we shall see.

It’s a good idea, I wish I’d planted my onions a bit further apart now.

@Light_EDDed Courgettes or pumpkins would be a quick growing space filler?

Just checked in after a year of being on Lewisham's allotment waiting list (after sort-of being on for years and years at old flat before moving last year) and I'm more than 380 down the list for the local one. And that only has about 50 spaces.

Do you know anyone at the site? I know someone at ours jumped the list by assisting another older tenant, who put them on their lease(we can have 3 signatories on ours) who then passed the plot directly over to them when they were unable to tend it any more due to ill health.

Bit of a convoluted approach but it got them a plot in under 9months.

Depends if your borough allows multiple signatories and has anything in place to help the older folks though I guess…

^this sort of thing might be why waiting lists move so slowly

So I planted some garlic late last year. The clove has turned into a bulb and the cloves within the bulb have started to sprout, should I be lifetime these now?

Courgettes could work. Which is the nicest courgette for cooking?

Which is the nicest courgette for cooking?

A small one! I think they're much a muchness, choose a variety which is less prone to powdery mildew (especially if you're not growing in full sun) and making sure you pick em quickly.

Edit- we’re growing courgette Astia this year.