The Allotment and The Orchard

We have two plots on two different sites. One in town is just a 15 minute walk from home; the other in a small village just outside town is a 10 minute drive away.

The Allotment           

The nearer plot is The Allotment proper. We have just completed our third summer there. It is not quite rectangular, although you don’t really notice this until you get to the corners. It is in fact a parallelogram. 

There I have constructed 20 beds for vegetables, each 5ft by 12ft. There is a 10ft by 6ft greenhouse towards the back of the allotment, and 4 compost bins at the front.  In the back left-hand corner there is  an area about 12ft by 10ft where we keep 6 laying hens. Next to it is a rough area with a shed.

We grow all our annual vegetables in the beds and greenhouse apart from runner beans which  grow up a fence of chicken wire near the shed.  In the greenhouse I grow lots of tomatoes and chillies (successfully) and some cucumbers, aubergines and sweet peppers (less successfully). I am experimenting this year with winter lettuce.

There are about 120 allotments in this site, and unfortunately pilfering does take place. A couple of years ago I lost a hose (which was left laying on the path) and a new roll of roofing felt (for the shed). Since then I have improved our fencing and lock and have not lost any tools, or indeed produce.  If thieves really want to get in, they will; all I can do is make it harder for them. Or maybe more attractive to raid someone else’s plot.  (Two summers ago a neighbour lost an entire polytunnel!)

Improved security - using an old motorbike chain

Neighbours say that if you lose tools on the Saturday night, you can go to a nearby car boot sale and buy them back on the Sunday morning!

Many allotmenteers don’t worry about security and simply take their tools home with them every day. If I lose any more tools I may well start doing that myself.

The Orchard            

The first allotment I was offered was in a small village just outside town. This was the plot I described in “Clearing an Overgrown Allotment”. We worked hard to establish it as a productive area again after years of neglect.  This plot too is not quite rectangular. It is trapezoidal in shape. Again you don’t notice the shape until to get towards the back and realize that the beds are getting shorter and shorter.

When we were offered the other plot nearer to home, we decided to retain both and convert the original plot to grow lower maintenance crops. This we now call The Orchard.  Here we have a caged area for growing berries: blackcurrants, gooseberries, late raspberries and redcurrants. There is an asparagus bed, which should start producing soon, and a rhubarb bed. 

Last November we planted out 8 trees on dwarfing rootstock: 4 apple trees, a family pear tree, 2 plum trees and a cherry (inside the cage). We also planted out a dozen summer-fruiting raspberries next to the fruit cage, with the intention of enlarging the cage to include them when they became established. Unfortunately most of them did not survive last year’s extreme winter.

There is a strawberry bed, which hasn’t produced anything worthwhile, mainly because of my neglect, and an experimental bed where I have started to grow some cut flowers for the kitchen table.

There is room for another bed if I should need it.

The Orchard is much wilder than The Allotment – there are corners which still need to be tamed. However, there seems to be no problem with theft, at least of the two-legged kind.  However, The Orchard is situated on top of a rabbit warren, so we have to constantly block up holes when they appear and fill even the smallest gaps in the perimeter fencing.

"I" or "We"

Reading over these posts I have noticed some inconsistency in using "I" or "We". Let me explain.

I retired as a maths teacher some 6 years ago. Mrs Spud still works full-time.  Originally the allotment was my hobby, and Mrs Spud just helped me out occasionally.  Gradually though, as it has become more productive, she has started to say "Our allotment" rather than "Your allotment" and is happy to more frequently give up time at the weekend to help me. Especially when the weather is good.

So it is basically my allotment. Except when it is ours.

Is that clearer?

We make a good team. She loves weeding (!) I hate weeding.  She hates planning and detail. I love detailed planning. And we both love eating fresh organic fruit, veg and eggs.