John's Allotment

I can't claim credit for the idea, I only noticed it when I got my allotment. It's very useful wandering around the site and getting ideas from other folk's plots.

Hee hee, I think most of mine are empty Tonic bottles too

 

Not posted on here for a bit, found this growing in one of the beds, it's the sort of weed I like:




Have some cut flowers down there:


Delphiniums



Potatoes flowering:


The first Blackberries:

 

Wow! Although I haven't looked, I don't think my blackberries are anywhere near ready yet.

 

@shiney they are Loch Tey, a very early variety. It doesn't yield well but gives us enough until the other main season BlackBerry ripens.

 

I've been trying to make my allotment a bit easier to manage. So have laid a lot of landscape material over the paths and under the soft fruit:




And used wood chippings as a thick mulch on this bed, not sure if this is a good idea but it was going free and thought I'd experiment:

 

If I was able I could have done a better job. The paths could do with levelling/raking over prior to covering. That landscape stuff is pretty slippery @JR so it would be better to use wood chippings, I would need an awful lot though, more than I have available. Maybe in the summer I can organise a lorry load dumped close by. I had to barrow those chippings about 100 yards from the allotment entrance. It's on a slope so no vehicles can get up over winter as it's just a grassy track.

 

Levelling would make the fabric easier to walk on and pinning it down firmly also helps. I don't know whether you have a hose facility there but if it gets muddy it is easy to hose off. I've been using it in my veg plot for at least 15 years and it makes things so much easier.

I use it in areas where I can grow veggies through it - beans, courgettes, squash, tomatoes, brassicas, sweetcorn etc. I've never had to replace any of it. It also warms up the soil for the start of the season, there is much less problem with slugs (can't remember seeing a snail there for years), in hot dry weather you can water through the hole where each plant is planted and the membrane reduces evaporation and there is no weeding necessary.