I sowed my first seeds on 29th March, anxious to get going once I knew I was definitely having an allotment plot. I’d been saving toilet roll tubes since I moved house last year – hoping I’d find a use for them somehow in the garden. I cut some in half and left others whole, the latter I’m using for tomatoes although ten days later I can’t remember what my logic was in this! Anyway as you can see from this box on my kitchen window sill I have been getting some germination. The largest ones in the foreground are courgette (Verdi di Italia) and you may just be able to make out some spindly seedlings in the bottom left corner – these are Claytonia. The tomatoes (Green Zebra) have just started to emerge but are not yet up to the top of the roll.

Germination

I have been using other reclaimed items too that would have otherwise gone into my recycling bin: tin cans, plastic veg trays, and egg boxes.

But I soon ran out of those I had available so have also bought some peat free fibre pots and peat free growing pockets (made of coir & wood fibre). The latter I have used for sowing some peas and mange tout as they don’t like being repotted. I’ve also planted some peas into a drainpipe but havent managed to find anywhere particularly warm I can put this so not sure how effective it will be at getting them started earlier than if I planted them directly outside. But the ones in the pockets are just starting to emerge after just 4 days and these are in an unheated shed.

I’ve now utilised all the space on my kitchen window sill and a set of shelves in my shed. The shed does have a window but doesn’t get a huge amount of light so I’m moving some of them outside into my lean too on sunny days. Not sure how many I’ll want to keep moving on a daily basis so they may have to take turns.

Windowsill seedlings

Once I’ve cleared vast amounts of cardboard out of my shed to use on the allotment both as a mulch and in my compost heap, I should be able to get at some more shelves and be able to continue sowing. I’ve concentrated on getting a small quantity of lots of varieties sown initially and will then make further succession sowings of some of them. I’ve been assiduous about labelling and dating everything but have slightly lost count of exactly what I’ve sown and when. I need to spend an hour or so setting up a recording system so I can keep better track. I’m using  Garden Planner to plan my plot and so I get reminders sent of what I should be sowing and planting every couple of weeks – but I don’t think there is a way of recording on the plan that you’ve actually done it.

As I’m just starting out I can know if a seed packet is open then I’ve sown it (somewhere!) but that won’t be much of a guide over the months – and years – to come. There is a facility to add notes on the garden planner to each variety so I may try to see if that is a good way of doing it – if not a simple spreadsheet should do the trick.

Well this is it! 

My new plot –  a weed-ridden boggy site covered in weeds. What was I thinking? Well, I’m told it will eventually dry out and as I’m going to practice no-dig gardening in raised beds I’m telling myself I don’t need to worry too much about the weeds.

I’m trying to keep my costs down as much as possible and so looking for free or cheap materials. Having spent a long time researching the various ways of constructing raised beds I came across the idea of using pallet collars. I’d not come across them before but they are designed to be used as additional protection for goods transported on pallets. The UK standard size is 1200 x 1000mm and 195mm deep (approx 4ft x 3ft 3in x 8 in deep) They are hinged at each corner so they can be stored or transported flat as shown in the photo, and the metal hinges protrude on one side and this enables them to be stacked on each other when opened out; so you could put them together to make deeper beds.

I was lucky enough to find someone locally offering pallet collars at £5 each on Gumtree. In fact my neighbour was also interested in them to replace her old raised beds built with scaffold boards some years ago, so I placed an order for 30  (18 for me and 12 for her) and cheekily asked for a discount – so got the 30 for £130 including delivery making them £4.33 each.  I also found some on ebay listed at £4 each but they were further away in Dudley and delivery was quoted as £55.

So here are the first two in situ. I’m pushing two together to make an 8ft bed and then will leave a path about 2ft wide before placing the next 8 ft bed. This will be the central path up through the plot and allow space for getting a wheelbarrow through. On the long sides I’ll leave about 1ft or maybe 18 inches just to allow space for my feet and access to either sides of the beds.

Although I wasn’t intending to do any digging I did do a bit to even out the level of the ground underneath. This section of my plot appears to have some earlier raised beds although there’s no evidence of any wooden sides but there are definite peaks and troughs. So I did slice off the tops of the peaks and turned the clods over into the troughs. I did this using my new toy – a Chillington digging hoe (sometimes known as an azada) – you can see it in the picture. This worked perfectly for this job and with no strain on my back – so very happy with it so far. The advantage of doing even this bit of digging was that it allowed me to have a bit of a closer look at the soil. And I was encouraged by how soft it appeared to be despite being very wet still – and also by the number of worms I saw.  Although I will be adding compost & manure and planting in the raised beds I expect that roots of plants will also be reaching down into the soil below the beds too. And I may also be digging a little bit of soil out from in between the beds to lower the paths slightly (I’ll be adding bark chippings eventually) and this will be mixed with compost in the beds.

As I lay each pallet collar in place I will immediately layer damp cardboard at the bottom to cut out the light. This will immediately start working as a weed suppressant whilst I await delivery of manure etc hopefully be next weekend.

My current plan is to cover about a third of the allotment with raised beds, leave a third for shed, compost bin and some plants not going into raised beds and cover the remaining third with black polythene to suppress the weeds. A request on freecycle for black polythene yielded a result and this is now also in situ. I had a bit of help from my son Aidan in getting it there and laying it out.

Mulching weeds

So a daunting task but I’ve got a plan, have made a start and hope that by working steadily one step at a time I’ll make progress and it won’t be too long before I can actually get some plants and seeds in the ground.

Having been offered an allotment plot last month, even before I had seen it I indulged myself in poring over a multitude of seed catalogues, both on paper and online.  I drew up a wish list of the (mainly) veg and herbs I wanted to grow and then looked for interesting varieties. After all there’s not much point in growing varieties that are easily and cheaply available to buy. My focus is on growing for taste – and to a certain extent appearance. I don’t mean that I want all uniformed shaped and sized veg but that I like a variety of colours eg red and green lettuce, purple beans and a mix of tomatoes.

I did look at all of the major seed companies and was on the point of making an order when I came across the Real Seed Catalogue and having read about their ethos it all made sense to me. They eschew F1 hybrids in favour of open-pollinated seed that will breed true and enable saving of seed for future sowings. Although the catalogue includes many heritage varieties they also have new varieties where they produce better flavoured results and imported plants such as Oca which they have trialled to see if they do well in UK growing conditions.

Their website has no particular bells and whistles but is easy to navigate and provides an image, detailed information about each variety, and notes on their culinary use.  I easily put together an order for about 30 packets of seed which arrived within a few days. Each pack includes basic growing details and further notes included cover how to harvest seeds from each for planting next year. 1p of the order cost goes towards membership of the Real Seed Club. This membership enables the company to supply seeds that are not on the EU official list of vegetable varieties.

Although Real Seed do include a range of herbs in their catalogue I found a greater variety (and cheaper!) at More Veg who specialise in selling small packets of seed for home growers with many costing only 50p. I bought over 20 packets of seed for about £15!

And to add to my supply of seeds my neighbour today handed me about 20 packs of seeds that she had spare – mainly freebies from gardening magazines over the last 12 months or so.  They may not be varieties I would have chosen but I’ll certainly try and give some of them a go if I have time – and space.

My kitchen window sill is already full of seed trays (mainly old egg boxes and toilet roll tubes as I’m not buying any new plastic trays) so I’m waiting for the weather to warm up so I can start more off in my garden shed, and fairly soon on the allotment itself once I have some beds set up. That’ll be a job for this weekend – pallet collars are arriving on Saturday so now its time to order a trailer load of manure….

I somehow don’t seem to have found the energy or time to post anything over the winter – which still seems to be hanging on interminably.  But I haven’t given up my foodie interests so above are a selection of snaps from odd occasions.

I’ve continued to have weekly deliveries from Abel & Cole including the salad recipe box. With only a couple of exceptions I have been very pleased with the recipes which all feature seasonal ingredients and provide me with at least four meals. Some are better than others for a main meal, some are more suited to an accompaniment. I’ve learnt to use less garlic than suggested – and also less rocket as I’ve really gone off the really strong stuff.

In January I did a Dosa making workshop at Loaf in Stirchley – a really fun evening and the results were great to eat, especially the gunpowder chutney which was new to me.

In Feb I visited my son up in Leeds and he treated me to a meal out at Stew and Oyster as a birthday treat. And he was persuaded to try an oyster for the first time – heavily laced with tabasco 😉  We also visited the Wakefield Rhubarb festival – and stocked up on a range of goodies including some excellent smoked salmon and chocolate, plus of course some forced rhubarb and a rhubarb crown to be planted on my new allotment.

And it is planning the allotment that has been taking up much of my headspace over the last few weeks – just off now to sign the paperwork & become a real allotmenter.  Watch this space…..