Should I go for this plot?

I noticed today in a shop window in the next village to me a notice offering plots on the nearby allotment for £20 for a full plot and £10 for half a plot.

I'm really tempted but am unsure if I'm ready for one yet.

I was hoping to just grow mostly fruit bushes on half a plot and then get another plot when I had more time to grow veg as well.

What puts me off is the time constraints I have at the moment and the fact that its on a hill.

My question to other members is how long do you all roughly spend on their allotment on their busy lives?

Also the term plot is that really universally the same size on each allotment? A quick Google says that a plot size is 25m2 that seems huge to me. Is this wrong?

 

My thinking is that if you didn't want to do it, you'd have dismissed the idea before getting as far as asking our opinions

 

My first thought is, go and have a look at it

 

Ave a look, if time is a problem, get a girt roll of black plastic, slice that in into 4 quarters and sit on it till the weeds have gone.

You can always grow stuff in pots/growbags on top till you'm ready.

 

Yep, you don't have to do it all at once

 

If you're asking whether to do it, I'd go for the half if anything at all. It will need time and dedication and if those are in short supply then it'll soon become a chore and if that happens you've defeated the whole purpose and deprived someone else of the opportunity. Keep the spark until time and circumstances permit you to take it up fully and enjoy it

 

Ok then. I'm going to have a look around the site sometime this week and then make my mind up.

I've decided to go for an allotment but I'm now just not sure if this is the right one for me yet. There are more that are nearer that apparently have plots but I'm interested in using this one I posted up to grow solely fruit on.

 

Just thought I would update this thread.

I had a look at the allotment today and put my name down for half a plot as all the plots that were up for grabs have now gone.

I was a little concerned about how overgrown some of the plots were. Does anyone have any tips on how to clear a site and on top of the weeds in the plots infancy?

 

Bit and Hold tactics. Target an area you can cope with and cover everything else with black plastic sheet until you are ready to tackle it. It doesn't matter how small the area you target is
Strim the area and dig it and pull out as many roots as possible as you turn the soil over.
The resident weeds will not take kindly to your interfering and will try to re-populate the area you've cultivated straight away. To reduce their impact plant sturdy fast establishing crops like potatoes (the earthing up process will knock the weeds back too) or plant crops you've started in pots at home as these too should shoot away ahead of the weeds.
Avoid tilling an area and planting seeds as the weeds will be growing up and between them giving you a tough time.
When you've got one area dug and planted and under control, peel back the plastic and target another area
To sum up
Cover everything to kill growth
Pick an area to cultivate
Dig, fork and prepare
Plant strong vigourous crops
Move on

 

If you still intend growing mainly fruit, get around £20's worth of 1m wide Mypex (or perhaps some old carpet from a skip, but it will need replacing) and use it to make paths around beds bordered with pallet slats and mulched around the plants with wetted newpaper/cardboard, perhaps leaving one bed for other stuff, no digging/weeding apart from immediately around the bushes, no strimming, no rotavating, no constant maintenance. Job done apart from slowly tackling that single bed.



Or leave 2 beds and grow plants through mulch in one and exposed soil in the other.

I've used the above method for creating Loganberry and Blackcurrant beds on neglected plots. The fruit bushes can have rotted manure applied when available/required on top of the paper mulch.

P.S. Ignore those horizontal lines across the beds.

 

I'm used to hard work my garden itself was pretty hard graft. I don't have any pictures of any plots as they were all gone. I did take a few pictures of plots neglected plots I was told by fellow allotment holders (who were on site today) that may be available and they do seem really overgrown with brambles and mostly grass.

Some of the allotment holders were insistent that the best method was to weed killer the lot but it seems to be frowned upon on the internet. Why is that? They also didn't really approve of black membrane saying that it didn't really kill the weeds at all.

My intentions were to rent half a plot and fill it with all fruit putting membrane underneath the plants to restrict the weeds. But having read through the rules of the allotment I came across this rule "the allotment shall not have more than one quarter of it allocated to permanent fruit crops" . Does anyone else have rules like this on their allotment too?

Are fruit bushes classed as permanent or do they just mean trees