We started our allotment on Boxing day, 2022. It was frosty, but the plot looked promising, with existing beds, two apple trees, a shed and a metal fruit cage (and rhubarb, and millions of strawberries, growing like weeds all over the paths). We thought we could do something with this. At that point, we had already been preparing another allotment for 3 months, on a private property 3.5 miles away, so we thought we would have to just plant a few squashes to make it look like we were working on the new one. As it turned out, the other allotment was a nightmare that ended painfully at the end of April 2023, so eventually we realised this was to be our only, and best allotment! (And it’s only 10 minutes’ walk up the road!)

In the new year, we got stuck in, weeding bed by bed.

As the beds got cleared, it started to dawn on me that it would have to be reorganised, the wooden sides would have to go, and we’d convert the plot to a neat set of long, no-dig, beds.

We ordered in a small lorry-load of cheap green waste compost, laid cardboard down where the weeds were strongest (mainly the paths), and spread the compost on the beds, as we cleared them.

Jannat found these cute signs online, so we had to have one.

By the end of January the beds were taking on their new shapes.

Mid February, and the compost is advancing across the plot.

By early March, all the beds were weeded, dug (for the last time – this was to become a “no-dig” plot!) and prepped with their first coat of compost. More layers to be added each year.

Just in time for the baby veg seedlings we’d been nurturing at home. Still tiny, and with the weather still a bit chilly, they are hiding under fleece covers.

Mid-April, the weather is warming up and the seedlings get to see the sky!

End of April, things are growing everywhere.

The other thing that happened at the end of April was our departure from the other allotment – which meant finding homes for lots of plants we’d planned to grow there, mainly brassicas. So, as we had no plans to grow fruit in the fruit cage, we covered it in finer netting, to keep out butterflies, and prepared the new “brassica cage” with compost.

By this time, the spuds (in buckets and in the no-dig bed next to them) were getting bigger.

Next day, all the “homeless” brassica seedlings finally had somewhere to call home. It’s a bit tight, but they’re only small (at the moment!)

A couple of weeks later, the summer is in full swing, and everything is filling up. Lettuces (bottom left in picture) just ready for picking – but we also had loads at home, in our “emergency” veg plot in the back garden – so these got a bit overlooked.

Mid June, the drought has been baking everything, but we think we have kept up with the watering. Lettuces getting a bit bushy…

Brassicas starting to fill their space nicely

Potatoes, beans (dwarf, runner and French climbing) and peas doing well.

Carrots, onions (various), Parsnips, (wild) strawberries, sweetcorn, rhubarb and those lettuces (and a giant mullein that we didn’t plant). We like the flower beds at the end of each veg bed (and so do the pollinators).

Looking a bit different from the picture at the top of the page!

Nice harvest of flowers, rhubarb and stones, in the foreground.

A month later, the drought is passed, some crops have been harvested, some, such as onions, didn’t fare very well, but the plot is starting to be cleared, some beds covered to suppress weeds, and some second plantings starting to go in.

August – our big Bramley’s Seedling is full of apples. Sadly, they were not very healthy, probably due to neglect in recent years, not having been pruned, sprayed, grease-banded, etc., and the lack of regular watering. Lots of bitter spot, but some were OK, and are lovely (cooked).

Some things now huge – runner beans “forest” hiding it’s secret huge pods, the lettuces are going to seed (deliberately, of course – we all save our own seed, don’t we?)

Lettuces out of the way, next year’s onion sets just gone into the little bed, bottom right in this picture, and leeks, late brussels, next Spring’s purple sprouting broccoli, parsnips, and some “proper” strawberries (to replace the silly little wild ones we inherited) carrying us into autumn and winter. (Why do so many lotty people clear their beds and go home until Spring?)

Leeks: those on the left are due to be eaten “in the Autumn”. Hmmm, may need a bit more time, yet. The others, on the right, are to over-winter, harvest next April or May, sometime.

More to follow, as time goes on…