Week 2 at The Old Garden
Well, we’re nearly 2 weeks into allotment life and a lot is happening out at The Old Garden. Firstly, in the last few days we’ve had some actual sunshine, hallelujah! Lots of plot holders have been taking advantage of the nice days with no-dig garden beds springing up all over the place. Some directly on cardboard, and some within raised beds. Fences are going up on some plots, as well as composters and even a greenhouse. It’s really great to see the site coming to life.
On allotment D6 we’ve been busy using heat treated pallets for raised beds (look for the HT stamp if you’re also planning to use pallets). I’ve drawn about 5 different plans for my plot so far, changing my mind on how to tackle it every second day. Way overthinking it, and deep diving into internet rabbit holes on managing soil erosion, improving clay soil and various methods for making new garden beds.
I have decided not to go the no dig method – mainly because of my empty hip pocket, and also because I am a fool. So, I’ve been trying to figure out how to make the best of what I already have available to me. I don’t expect to have a bounty of crops this year if I’m honest. But I’m hoping that everything I do will be improving the soil for the years to come.
What I’ve learnt so far is that raised beds can be really good for areas that experience a lot of rain, because it means excess water can drain away so the plants aren’t sitting in constantly wet soil. On part of my allotment I’m going to attempt a method I’ve seen online where you dig out your paths and use the soil you’ve dug out to create mounds for planting in, you can even put sticks and overturned sod at the base of these mounds as it will all break down eventually, improving the soil quality as it does so. I’m also going to try cover cropping in some areas that I’m not ready to actively garden in, with field beans, peas and clover to improve nitrogen levels in the soil and reduce the need for mulching and grass cutting. Plus, I have a heap of Daikon Radish seed because I’ve read that the deep roots really help break up clay soil.
It would be super easy to overthink it (like I am) and get yourself overwhelmed (which I’m surprisingly not). But the only pressure here is the pressure you put on yourself. If you have yourself a plot and you don’t know where to start, please know you don’t have to deep dive into it like I am. Start with one or two garden beds and go from there. I’m looking at this first year as one big experiment to see what works and what doesn’t. Because even once I manage to get my garden beds in place, the next hurdle will be figuring out how protect everything from slugs, snails, birds, rabbits, foxes, too much rain, too little rain….. The list is endless, so we need to enjoy the process, right? And hopefully we finish the season with more than just a few bags of potatoes.
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Skye
