New Improved Path

New Improved Path
Originally uploaded by drooster7.

Eventually all the paths between the beds will be like this.

Raspberry Plants

Raspberry Plants
Originally uploaded by drooster7.

The ones at the back are "Glen Moy" Raspberries that we bought at Egglestone Hall Garden Centre. The others are ones we were given by our neighbour and have been temporarily earthed up until they are moved to their final position.

Broccolli Plant

Broccolli Plant
Originally uploaded by drooster7.

Actual Broccolli!! This is from another one of our 3p plants.

Carrots

Carrots
Originally uploaded by drooster7.

Here is our entire harvest of carrots this year, picked today. It doesn't look much but I'm quite pleased we got any at all considering how late in the year they went in. Also, this was a round variety...they aren't stunted.

Beetroot

Beetroot
Originally uploaded by drooster7.

Our last few beetroots this year. The beetroot has done really well...a bit too well to be honest...We probably won't plant quite so much next year.

The Finished Fence and Gate.

The Finished Fence and Gate.
Originally uploaded by drooster7.

This is the front fence and gate....we are now totally fenced!!!

The Story So Far Part Two

The next thing to consider was our fencing. We were very lucky that our neighbours were very quick to get started with their fences and so all of our left hand fence was done for us. That still left a lot of fencing to find our buy, which wouldn't be cheap.

We were really lucky again, as the council started to renew all of the fencing surrounding our allotment, taking down all the old wooden fencing and installing a new shiny metal security fence. They left all the old wood for people on the site to use and we timed it perfectly to get our share. We also managed to get loads of wooden pallets, which we used for our right hand fence and also to make two compost bins.

The pictures below show where we were up to a couple of weeks ago.

Yesterday we finally finished all the fencing (I'll hopefully get a picture up in the next few days, my phone was flat yesterday) and just have to put in a gate which my Dad is making over the next few days. We are then going to start stripping down the remaining fence panels we have to build some raised beds.

So far we have had 5 cabbages, 6 beetroot and 6 large pieces of Brocolli from our allotment, and our carrots and turnips are coming on a treat. Not bad for a pair of novice late starters!

Work In Progress.

Work In Progress.
Originally uploaded by drooster7.

This was how things looked a couple of weeks ago. We had started to make the middle path a bit more permanent, the side fence of pallets was finished and we'd put one panel on the back.

Side Fence

Side Fence
Originally uploaded by drooster7.

A view of our magnificent pallet side fence. 100% free.
In this picture you can also see the level of the weeds on the plots that haven't started yet, compared to ours, and all we done to the back half of ours is cover it with the manure.

Side Fence and Beds

Side Fence and Beds
Originally uploaded by drooster7.

In this view you can see some of the front beds. On the left, from the front, are Brussel Sprouts, Broccoli and Cabbages. On the right are Carrots, Beetroots, Turnips and then one and a half beds of green manure.

Our Biggest Cabbage

Our Biggest Cabbage
Originally uploaded by drooster7.

This was one of the bargain basement/clearout cabbages which cost about 3p each. They've all done really well. So far we've had about 5 cabbages when we didn't really expect to get any.

Original Plan Of Our Plot

Original Plan Of Our Plot
Originally uploaded by drooster7.

This was how we set out the allotment. Very little has changed, except that the smaller beds at the back have been changed to look like all the others.

If you click on the picture and then move your arrow over the picture on the next page, there is additional information....very hi-tec and snazzy I'm sure you'll agree

The Story So Far Part One

We got our allotment on the 27th July 2006. It is on the St Oswalds Allotment in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham. We were quite lucky that we weren't on a waiting list very long, probably only about 4-5 months, as the town council extended this allotment and added 8 new plots, one of which we got.

Our plot is 15.7 metres long and 6.3 metres wide.

As you can see from the picture below when we got the plot there was absolutely nothing there. On the plus side this meant it had been recently ploughed and treated with weedkiller. On the downside it meant we had to start absolutely from scratch, we had no established beds or paths and no structures such as a shed, compost bins or fencing.

This was quite daunting at the time but as every in times of worry Ann stepped up and made a plan. She used information we had got from books to draw up a plan of the layout of the site including all the beds and things like water butts, compost bins and a place for the shed. All our beds are 1.2m wide as this was recommended in a few books as the optimum size to allow you to manage and harvest from both sides.

As we got our allotment quite late in the year, as far as planting things out goes anyway, we knew we weren't going to need all our space this year. So the first thing we did was to mark out two sets of rotation beds at the front of the allotment. We planted these up with a few bits and pieces that we managed to scrap together. These were:

Carrots - A pack of seeds I had to try container growing at home but had never got round to using
Beetroot - A pack of seeds that my Dad had lying around
Turnips - A pack of seeds that I bought after a request from Ann's friend Becky.
Cabbages, Broccoli & Sprouts - These were bought from Blairs Garden Centre in Darlington. As it was really too late to grow anything this year they were reduced from 99p for 10 plants to 99p for 30 plants (10 of each).

We didn't think any of this would give us any produce this year, and mainly put them in as ground cover to keep weeds down or to use as feed for our pet rabbit Dylan, especially the Cabbage, Broccoli and Sprout plants. As it turned out though a combination of blind faith and excellent autumn weather means that we have actually had quite a lot off and I'll try and include some pictures later.

The next thing we did was to tackle Mount Dung. The pile in the picture was to be split between us and our neighbour. We spread our half over the back half of our plot. This was to surpress weeds this year and then to pass into the ground through the winter. This has worked really well, our plot is pretty weed free, especially compared to the plots that people have yet to start on.

Sorry For The Delay.....

....We've just had a massive rush to try and get all the wood we collected (more on this later) turned into our fencing before Bonfire Night, so I haven't got the "Story So Far" on. I'll be doing that this afternoon.

In The Beginning There Was Nothing...

DSCF1852
Originally uploaded by drooster7.

...Well except for a huge pile of dung!! (That's my Dad by the way....surveying the lay of the land before we started)

Our New Blog

Welcome to our blog.

We're intending to use this blog as a record of everything that is done on our allotment. Hopefully this will help us to remember what we did in previous years, successful things to repeat or, more likely, things that went wrong which we can then avoid doing again. It may even provide useful hints and tips for other people who are just starting out with an Allotment, like we are.

Please feel free to leave any comments.

Over the next couple of days I'm going to try and put on a "Story So Far" post and from there update with new posts when there is something to say.