Hints and tips
Taking on or looking after an allotment can be quite a challenge, especially when your prize vegetables start to disappear under a carpet of weeds! On this page we intend to post hints and tips and useful links to help you keep on top of your plot and get the most out of your allotment.
Please send any tips you might have or suggestions for topics we might want to include to stuff@amos-simon.com or leave us a message and I'll post them here. Alternatively, if you have any questions, such as 'how do I stop the deer from eating my lettuce?' or 'why are my potato plants dying off?', send them in and we'll endeavour to provide an answer here.
First up, this fantastic site, by two Leeds allotmenteers, is a mine of useful information on all aspects of allotment keeping. It is a useful first point of reference for all allotment questions.
allotment.org.uk also has lots of useful articles on a wide range of subjects
The HDRA's gardenorganic.co.uk website has loads of information on all aspects of organic gardening including this page on what to do this month.
The links, hints and tips are organised into sections - click on one of the links below to go to the section you are interested in.
Sorting out pests (slugs, rabbits, deer)
Starting out
If you've never had an allotment before, starting out can be quite a challenge. Where should I start? What crops should I grow? How do I keep on top of the weeds?
The following links should answer all these questions and more:
A good place to start is with this article on clearing an allotment.
A pretty good discursive article on starting an allotment.
A nice set of articles from the Weston-super-Mare Allotment Club. But skip the article on Marestail, or you'll have sleepless nights.
A slightly longer article from Which? (pdf)
Another nice, if slightly garish, article on starting out, with a slightly obsessive section on weed control. You might need your sunglesses for this one.
Keeping on top of things
It's a not uncommon experience to discover that keeping an allotment is a lot more work than you expected. There are lots of ways you can plan your plot to reduce the amount of work involved.
Keep it simple! Grow easy vegetables that don't take too much care, such as onions, potatoes, runner beans, broad beans, beetroot, lettuce and parsnips. Save the fancy stuff until you've got the hang of allotment keeping.
One useful tip is simply to plant lots of potatoes, as these provide good ground cover, keep down weeds, help break up the soil and require minimal care.
Covering unused areas of ground with black plastic can also be useful in times of trouble, killing off weeds and preventing weed seeds from spreading. Your plot will be a lot easier to dig after a couple of months under black plastic.
Keeping on top of weeds
Weeds are a perenial problem on allotments. If you're clearing a previously neglected plot, black plastic and potatoes are two of the main suggestions for controlling weeds until you can get on top it.
The HDRA organic weeds website is a mine of information on weeds and organic weed control.
Couch grass
A particular problem when taking over a neglected plot is couch grass. The consensus on couch grass seems to be that the best thing to do is simply turn it over and leave it for a couple of months. Or blast it with pesticides. An alternative approach can be found here.
Generally speaking, the gardener's secret weapon in the fight against weeds is the humble hoe. Simply hoeing between the rows regularly will take care of most of your weed problems.
Sorting out pests (slugs, rabbits, deer, etc.)
When they're not being choked by weeds, our precious fruit and veg seem to spend their time winking coquetishly at pesky herbivores. Below are some hints and tips for helping ensure that it's you, not the critters, who get the lion's share of the crop.
Slugs and snails
Slugs are pernicious, destructive and ugly. Snails are just pernicious and destructive.
We have a book on dealing with these critters in the shop, which you're welcome to peruse.
As a first stop for information on slug control, I'd recommend this rather long, but very informative, article on slug control, including information on pellets, traps, encouraging predators, resistant plant varieties and scissors.
This is a much more concise, but equally informative article.
Deer and rabbits
Deer and rabbits are a significant problem on the Stourbridge site. The deer are Muntjac, which grow to about 60 cm tall and wander in across the railway line from the common. They can be a major pest, with the potential to completely destroy crops such as carrots and winter lettuce. They are becoming less of a problem as more of the site is cleared and in the long term the committee is hoping to finance a fence along the railway track to keep them out. In the meantime there are two main things you can do to deter them:
1) Fence your plot. This is the main reason why many plots on the Stourbridge site are lightly fenced and, as you can see from many of these fences, it doesn't have to be bulletproof - deer will rarely cross even the flimsiest fence (although when pushed they can jump up to 6 ft!!). We do, however, recommend that it's at least 80 cm high. To reduce the effort involved, you may want to get together with your neighbours and fence off a whole group of plots.
2) Plant crops or varieties which deer aren't so keen to munch. Here's a quick list - please tell us of any others you're aware of:
parsnips
chard
rhubarb
courgettes
pumpkins.
Composting
Composting is far the most convenient and environmentally friendly way of disposing of organic material.
It is also by far the easiest way of returning to the soil the nutrients you remove from it in growing your veg, far cheaper and much more environmentally friendly than artificial fertilisers.
It's also great environmentally, providing a daytime hiding place for useful wildlife, such as hedgehogs and frogs, which help hoover up pests such as slugs and snails.
We've put together some links with information on how to compost, what you should and shouldn't compost, how to design and build your compost heap, etc.:
The Garden Organic website has pretty much all you'll ever need to know about composting - click on the 'How to make compost' link.
Or if you're in a hurry this site has a few quick basic tips.
This site offers a few thoughts on designing your compost system and some ideas for buidling a compost bin.
All seem to agree that four wooden pallets tied together make a good basic compost bin, that you can compost pretty much all your garden waste except horsetail, potatoes and potato plants and brassica roots and that homemade nitrogen rich activator is good but should be applied with consideration for the neighbours.
Tips for specific vegetables
Below are some links for finding helpful advice on growing specific vegetables:
Growing Vegetables on an Allotment, great blog type site from some intrepid allotmenteers from Leeds.
Tips for growing a rather esoteric selection of vegetables from the BBC. Once you've chosen a vegetable, ignore the scanty first page and click on the "Read more on this topic" button for some much more substantial information.
Lots of information on yer basic bread and butter veg from gardenaction.