(Almost) spring on the allotment

I'd be enjoying this run of warm, sunny weather much more if it was, say, early May than February, but it's certainly been nice to get down to the allotment more than usual at this time of year. While it's a bit unsettling to get sunburned in the north of England in what is technically still winter, we've at least managed to get a head start on our spring jobs.

We've had quite a hectic social calendar over the last few weekends but have spent a few hours each week at the plot whenever possible. Last weekend, our progress included:

• Digging over and covering four beds
• Cutting back several smaller fruit trees
• Digging up a very old redcurrant bush
• Extending our woodchip and paving stone path
• Marking out new beds

But perhaps the thing I'm most excited about is the fact that we finally tackled The Mound. When we took on our plot, the ground was incredibly uneven. We've made good progress at levelling it out over the past year, but a huge mound near the entrance remained untouched. Well, we finally decided to tackle The Mound last weekend. It's hard to see in photos how big it was, but I estimate it at around 4 feet high, 5 feet wide and 12 feet long. The Mound was covered in about 6 layers of plastic and weed membrane, some of which had started to disintegrate. It probably took longer to remove these layers than to do anything else as there were so many plants and roots growing through the various layers, some many feet long.

Before we started tackling The Mound...

...and after!

Once we had removed the bulk of the coverings, we started digging. What we found was a mixture of soil, bricks, rubbish, large shards of glass and lots and lots of stones. It took several hours to get there, but the area is almost levelled out now, which we are delighted about! Now just the several visits to the tip to get rid of all the rubbish and broken glass!

The bricks we found will be put into use elsewhere on the plot, while the soil was used to fill in some of the other uneven patches of ground.

Love a productive Saturday

This weekend's plans include digging over more beds, trying to get hold of a ladder to prune the huge cherry tree, burning as much waste as possible and building some more raised beds. Let's hope it's a dry one! In other news, I planted some crocus bulbs before winter and had completely forgotten about them so was pleasantly surprised when they started appearing recently. So nice to have some colour at this time of year!

Crocuses adding some colour

Everton Community Garden

We were lucky enough to spend some time at the fantastic Everton Community Garden at the weekend, a place I'd never heard of previously but fell in love with immediately! My family was having a bit of a family reunion and as one of my relatives is heavily involved in the running of the garden, she suggested we have it there. My great-grandparents were the common link for this branch of the family, and they originally settled in Everton from Wales and Ireland. It was extra special meeting relatives I've never met before in the exact place our ancestors lived!

Arriving at Everton Community Garden

My relative gave us a tour of the garden and explained that it's run by volunteers for the local community. Like many other community gardens, Everton Community Garden has lots of produce, which it gives away to locals in return for donations to help with the garden's running costs. Everything is organic and the entire enterprise is run on a shoestring budget, but the volunteers have done an amazing job with the site.

The vast majority of the beds are raised, making them accessible to a wide range of users. There's an SEN school alongside the garden, and the pupils often visit the site. The site is paved, making it accessible to wheelchair users, and there is plenty of space between beds. 

There are two large polytunnels on the site, and these made me determined that we need a greenhouse or small polytunnel on allotment 22 as soon as possible! I really want the extra flexibility and possibilities you get with greenhouse growing, added to which, such structures make a great shelter from the biting cold wind in winter!

Everton Community Garden polytunnel

We visited right at the end of September, obviously at the end of the growing season for most crops, but there was still a huge amount of activity in the outdoor beds and in the vast polytunnels. There were bountiful raspberry bushes and strawberry plants (still!), lots of squash, piles of courgettes and mountains of tomatoes and peppers to name just a few. I was also impressed by the delicious grapes growing both inside one of the polytunnels and along the outdoor archway. I had no idea British-grown grapes could taste so good!

Grapes growing in the polytunnel

I picked up a few tips from some of my gardening relatives, including some companion planting ideas, and am keen to put their suggestions into practice. I'm also definitely going to be looking to grow yellow raspberries on allotment 22 next year after sampling just how tasty they are. I'm also going to be branching out into as many different types of squash as I can as the varieties you can buy in the shops are so limited. 

We came home with a huge bag of fruit and veg, an added bonus to what was already a lovely day. I think the courgettes, peppers and tomatoes we brought back with us will most likely end up in some kind of roasted Mediterranean veg pasta, perfect for brightening up the chilly start to October we're having.

Homegrown tomatoes of all sizes

If you're in the Merseyside area, I highly recommend you pay a visit to this lovely garden. If nothing else, you'll be able to pick up some amazing organic produce for the cost of a donation to the organisation! The garden was so much better than I expected and it's made me want to get involved with a similar project closer to home so I'm currently researching other community gardens in the area. If you're interested in setting up something similar, the RHS has a great resource section on community gardens and how to go about starting one. The Know How Non Profit site also has some good beginner info, and provides links to lots of useful sites that should help you. 

Jenny  x

The best allotment books for beginners

I LOVE allotment and gardening books, even those that aren't particularly helpful or well-written. I find them incredibly relaxing to read, and can often be found flicking through them at the end of a long, tiring, stressful day.

I have a pretty sizable collection already, despite only starting to take an interest in gardening and growing in the past year. These are just a few of the books I own, but there are many more scattered about the house:

With the internet being such a valuable source of gardening and growing information, I originally thought I wouldn't find books that helpful. However, as a complete beginner, I found it useful to have a few reliable sources to refer to, rather than wading through the often confusing and conflicting information online.

Some of the books I own are reliable favourites I return to again and again. Others...less so. I bought several books very cheaply via eBay and some of them are poor to say the least. Patronising, not particularly helpful, and surprisingly sexist in some cases, despite being published fairly recently. This post will concentrate on the books I've found most helpful, however.

In no particular order, these are the books I would recommend to a novice allotmenteer or someone looking to start growing fruit or veg at home for the first time:

Allotment Month by Month: How to Grow Your Own Fruit and Veg
Alan Buckingham

Allotment Month by Month was the first book I bought when we took on our plot, and it was incredibly helpful.  It's very clearly and attractively laid out and I love that it's separated into months so you can see at a glance what you should be doing at any given time! Due to the sheer volume of topics it covers, it doesn't go into a great deal of depth, but as an overview for newbie growers, I think it's one of the best books out there.

It has an extensive section on many of the most commonly grown allotment crops, with some useful tips on sowing, growing and harvesting. The book is laid out similarly to a very helpful textbook, and feature attractive photos to boot. If you only buy one book, make it this one!

RHS Allotment Handbook & Planner: What to do when to get the most from your plot
The Royal Horticultural Society

The second book I purchased after signing up for my plot, the RHS Allotment Handbook & Planner is another one I found extremely useful. The advice is pretty thorough and the book has a similar textbook feel to Allotment Month by Month. As you might expect from the RHS, it's a well put together book with some stunning photos. There are sections on just about anything you can think of when it comes to allotments, including keeping chickens and which insects are particularly beneficial to your plot.

I tend to use this book as an introduction to various techniques and then head over to the RHS website if I need more in-depth info. There is a fantastic grow your own section, and I can get lost on this website for hours if I'm not careful!

The Veg Grower's Almanac: Month by Month Planning and Planting
Martyn Cox

I received this as a gift for Christmas and I didn't think I'd get much use out of it as I already had a few other books by then. However, The Veg Grower's Almanac is a fascinating little book. Perfect for reading in bed (or while taking a break down on the plot at allotment 22!) due to its more compact size in relation to most of my other allotment books, it's a goldmine of info. It takes a different approach to the other two books above, and contains interesting nuggets of information you wouldn't usually find in a a gardening book. There are sections on the history of various plants, tips on growing more unusual crops and some genuinely entertaining facts on all things fruit and veg.

I didn't actually realise this was a Gardener's World publication until I picked it up just now to flick through it, but it's slightly more informal and conversational style makes sense now I know this.

Practical Allotments
Paul Wagland

I picked up Practical Allotments at a local garden centre not long after we'd taken on our plot. At that point, I was so hungry for tips and advice, I was pretty much snapping up everything with the word "allotment" on it. This turned out to be a pretty useful purchase, however. Not so much for growing advice - although there is some of that in here - but more in terms of inspiration for laying out and managing the plot. While there are things I am simply never even going to contemplate - such as installing solar panels on my shed - there are some handy tips for adding a seating area, building your own compost bin, saving seeds and lots of other practical things.

I'd say this book is particularly suited to anyone who's inherited a particularly crap plot, that is, one with no usable structures or one that needs a complete overhaul to make it work efficiently. If you have been lucky enough to land a well-maintained plot with shed, greenhouse, immaculate fencing and pristine beds, this probably won't be quite as useful!

So there are my favourite books out of the 20 or so I've accumulated in the past year. That isn't to say the others aren't useful or I don't enjoy reading them, just that those listed above are the ones I return to most frequently and the ones I've found most consistently helpful.

Please let me know if you've read any allotment or gardening books you loved, or if you've read any of those mentioned above!

Jenny x