and encouragement. Introduce yourself to neighbours, who can usually add information to your important first impressions.
AMBITION You need an aim in mind, confidence in yourself and sufficient common sense to temper your dreams with an awareness of your limitations, particularly at those times of year when a plot can seem both huge and unmanageable. Remember, though, that every year is a fresh beginning, when you can revise or simplify your plans. A plot that is too large can be shared with others or you can usually rent a part-allotment, and persistence always pays in the end.
COST If you have to buy tools, starting up can be expensive, especially if you add refinements, such as edging beds with boards and a greenhouse, shed or fruit cage. Don’t forget to include rent and travel expenses in your costs. However, you don’t have to renovate or plant up a whole allotment in the first season. You can start on the most neglected plot with just a mattock or spade and a few packets of seeds.
SEE ALSO ▸ Tools pages 54-5 Mulching page 119 The allotment year pages 166-215 Resources pages 216-18
devising a plan
Making sketches During your first visit to the allotment, make a rough sketch plan of the plot with the position of all the important features like paths and any buildings, existing beds and perennial plants or remaining crops. Annotate the plan with any information you might gather about soil, aspect, exposure or neighbouring plots. Note any sloping ground because you will tend to take loads of manure or water in one direction more than others, and this might influence your layout.
When you are back home, make another plan, this time of your ideal plot. Allocate space for all your favourite crops and anything else you would like to grow, bearing in mind which need sun, shade or plenty of water and attention, as this could affect their siting. Consider the extra facilities you might like now or in the future – a family gathering place, cold frames or a fruit cage – but remember that you can always change your mind and adapt the plan later.
All this preliminary thought can help you to visualize life on the plot and so translate your dream into reality.
BOUNDARIES & PATHS
These are important, and establish the plot’s shape and means of access.
The edges of your plot could simply be paths or lines on the ground, or a previous tenant may have arranged something more elaborate. However, comprehensive fencing of any kind is inappropriate and a waste of ground; it may also possibly contravene site rules.
A useful way to define boundaries is to make natural boundaries, such as training fruit on posts and horizontal wires (see page 147), which can be very productive while occupying little space. Free-standing fruit bushes or seasonal hedges of runner beans, Jerusalem artichokes, sunflowers or herbs like angelica can confer privacy and relief from wind, perhaps screening an area for a sheltered seat.
There may only be one or two existing paths, dividing your plot from those next door. As these will probably be shared, any changes, improvement or maintenance should be negotiated with neighbours.
Paths within the plot are your exclusive responsibility. For practical purposes, main paths usually need to be straight, weather-proof, wide enough for comfort, and run directly between important points. Subsidiary paths (between beds, for example) can be narrower, even temporary arrangements, planned to allow access to cultivate and tend the various areas.
The material used will vary from plot to plot, although some sites are laid out with a grid of permanent paved paths. They will often be made of grass, which needs mowing or trimming periodically, while trampled earth is sufficient to allow simple maintenance between beds – protect those on wet ground with sacking, bark or waste timber slats. Paving slabs are the best long-term solution, or you could use gravel spread about 5cm (2in) deep on top of a weed-suppressant membrane (but beware: deep or smooth gravel can impede laden wheelbarrows).
how to garden
Methods of cultivation
Plot-holders quickly become very attached to their allotments. If growing your own produce is a new experience, you will probably find that your initial attention is focused on the routine of starting and tending plants, culminating in the anticipation and triumph of harvesting fresh food that you have produced yourself, an experience that never palls.
BIODIVERSITY
News reports document the alarming worldwide decline in biodiversity, the variety and numbers of plants and creatures on earth. How you manage your plot can have an equally critical impact on wildlife at a much more local level, and is more within your power to control. Using sustainable gardening methods and minimizing disturbance to natural life cycles can help safeguard the future for other species that use the plot. An allotment is often teeming with life, whether it is soil-based and out of sight, or more obvious, like the birds, insects, amphibians and reptiles that may be found on any sensitively managed site.
Before long, however, you will become aware of a wider context: life in the soil and surroundings, the influence of local geography and climate, and even the old-fashioned concept of stewardship – your responsibility for the continuing welfare of the land in your care. This could lead you into asking more fundamental questions about the way you are growing your crops, and the implications of simply imposing a basic plan on the plot for short-term results.
Alternative methods
Gardeners have explored and tested alternative methods of cultivation, particularly since a spreading ecological awareness has meant that chemical-based gardening seems increasingly untenable and is no longer the norm. Attempts to treat nature as an ally and work in harmony with the environment have resulted in a variety of sympathetic approaches.
The most familiar of these is organic gardening, but other approaches have gone further: biodynamic gardening harnesses the subtle influence of the moon’s phases on growth, for example, while forest gardening imitates the natural structure of woodland habitats to pack a lot of plants amicably into a small space.
None of these methods has a monopoly on success, nor are they mutually exclusive, and the basic mechanics of sowing, planting, tending and harvesting remain broadly the same whichever you choose. In the end your own inclination and personal conviction through good results will help you decide which and how many of these methods feels right for managing your allotment.
ORGANIC GARDENING Many plot-holders first choose to grow their own because they want top-quality fresh food produced in a way they approve, which often means organically. But there is more to organic gardening than simply giving up artificial fertilizers and chemical pesticides. Replacing these inorganic inputs involves following a different cultural routine more in harmony with natural cycles and environmental susceptibilities.
Possibly the most fundamental principle is to feed the soil rather than the plant, using organic materials, such as compost and manure (see pages 116–19), that encourage soil organisms to flourish and make nutrients available to plants. It is even possible to abandon animal manures if you prefer, and concentrate instead on garden compost, leafmould (see page 208), plant-based fertilizers and green manures (see page 119) as sources of fertility.
Controlling problems involves a range of precautions and treatments (often termed ‘integrated pest management’) rather than simply reaching for a specific spray. Efficient crop rotation (see pages 32–5) is one sound method. This can be combined with using resistant plants sown at times when pests are less prevalent, encouraging natural predators and companion plants (see page 35), and keeping the plot tidy and well maintained.
GIVING UP CHEMICALS
A plot that has been maintained