Anyone with an allotment?

This is the fruit of my labour on Saturday. Raised beds in place with wood chip on top of membrane for the path.

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Old apple tree pruned

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Added a second apple tree different species of apple too. Malus spartan

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Our allotment committee get a bit sniffy about planting trees due to shade and overhang when the trees are more mature. I've planted a few whip trees in the past on my plot and have had to fuck about moving them to a more central position at their request.

I shall await their snotty email. If they tell me in the next few years I can still move it.

I'm waiting for their bulk soil delivery so I can start planting out.

I didn't have the space for real hugelkultur beds,
https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/many-benefits-hugelkultur
and,
only found out about them after building raised beds in our garden.
Subsequently I have dug out the raised beds, sometimes just a trench of 1/3 width
and incorporated logs and shredded/mulched wood upcycled from the local (municipal)
golf course burn site,
in effect having a layer of slow release organic material in the bottom of the raised bed.
I think I can persuade myself we get better cropping of salad vegetables,
better drainage, (soil is improved from 'London Clay'), in the top layer,
and better moisture retention in the lower layers.
(raised beds are nominal 18 inches deep, when turned over, before inevitable soil settlement).

Worms seem more plentiful, and some are much bigger than typical garden worms.
If you have some logs, and can shred some woody material it might be worth trying on one of your raised beds.

Strong work :)

Definitely a fun project, I took the plot realising the amount of work as I wanted the greenhouse and it has a huge established vine we intend to keep.

R.e. Scrap metal merchant, one of the other plot holders is married to one, so it will be collected in the next week or so, which is a result!

Subscribed. My pal and I have just taken on our first allotment in the last few months. Making lots of mistakes, but also some progress I think. There's a few bits in there already including a massive globe artichoke, rhubarb and a few fruit bushes, some very frail looking strawberries and a massive pile of horse shit! Will update with pics soon.

Official Allotment Association member - right here

More...

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Strong allotment game there.

I went for raised beds because the soil is terrible where I am.

How is the soil where you are?

Stony as, but seems to have been well fed at some point. Quite free draining so from what our co-alloters tell, sounds like lots of summer watering required. If the deer don’t eat everything first.
Quite a lot of bindweed and apparently the mice do well here. Need more space, only have a half plus a huge apple tree and shed so trying to wrangle another full plot without much success at the moment :(

Pure clay for me. It's a bastard to dig too. People who have plots there already said you can spend time and effort putting in soil conditioner or go for raised beds.

Get hold of all the carpets from skips you can lay your hands on. Cover the site and let nature do it's work.

Just concentrate on a few square metres at a time to grow stuff in.

Can’t you do a cordon? Takes up less space and trees fruit better.

Started digging out some space today with the only area that isn't covered in scrap, there is piles of carpet left behind from the previous resident, so I'm saving it all.

Also started incinerating all the useless stuff, sorted though tons of wood keeping anything worthwhile.

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Pleased with what we have managed so far, though I've been down there every day since Saturday!

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^ be careful there's not a 'no burn' season. We can't burn 1 April - 30 Sept, council bylaw thingy.

Great progress btw. We were advised to aim for using 25-30% plot for growing yr 1 then expand yr 2 onwards. Makes it less daunting.

R.e. Scrap metal merchant, one of the other plot holders is married to one, so it will be collected in the next week or so, which is a result!

Ha, sorted.

Good start; well remember those early days and clearing the savannah! Ended up with half of this cultivated that year, pretty much to universal surprise...

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Could you espalier it to keep it super low level? Then it wouldn’t cast any more shade than that huge plastic tunnel thing back left of shot.

We have a load of allotments at work. Anita Rodick at her environmental best. There’s a massive greenhouse (1/4 acre) that used to be used for growing the ingredients for product development that’s available for cultivating.
Now most people commute miles to work and there is not the same number of locals employed so most of the plots are empty and over grown.
I suspect a lack of publicity surrounding their availability doesn’t help either.

I checked with the committee first as I don't want to upset anyone, we just have to be careful of wind direction as one side is residential and the other side fields.

Our plan is to get 3 -4 beds in for growing this year, and work on the rest over the summer.

I'd recommend getting some asparagus crowns in asap. Can't touch it for 2 years. I'm about to pick my first lot shortly.

Also Poundland do some decent berry bushes but again they take a while to establish. I've got three on my plot and all doing well

I've only got a half plot so trying to use the space wisely so just popped the whip trees in spare space. Reassuringly they bounced back when I moved them so that's something.