Got a Plot!

[muninnhuginn]

Yup. A ten pole* allotment plot, rented for the year for the princely sum of £13.35 including membership of the British Allotment Association. So it's not a huge financial outlay. And the various gentlemen on site reckoned that four or five hours a week is all it takes. We admired their pristine, productive looking plots and didn't ask how long they spent working on them.

Ours hasn't been cultivated for a couple of years, so it's weedy, but not badly overgrown. Hopefully, health of man with tractor permitting, it will have the vegetation chopped down and a rotovator run over it next week. Currently, it has weeds, a pile of compost, and two rhubarb plants. So we're going to have rhubarb tonight--and Bird's custard. Yum.**

It's right at the end of the site, against a hedge full of brambles: we've picked the other side of that hedge several times over the years! So there's some shelter. Note this is an allotment site next to one of Cambridge's larger pieces of common land which gets blasted by the Siberian winds in the Winter (we know we've wlked across it twice daily regularly. Brrrrr!) It's a ten minute walk from home, tops. Less than five minutes off Newmarket Road behind the football stadium. You wouldn't believe it, though. It's so quiet. Just birds and gardeners (and mice and foxes and pheasant...).

So what are the plans?

Today or tomorrow: go back and:

1. Pick more rhubarb (in case it gets acidentally chopped back).
2. Take photo of its current state.

Next week:

1. Get seeds/plants.
2. Once the rotovation's done, mark out plot.
3. Initial planting, if there's time.
4. Photo of cleared site and beginnings of planting.

Later: If we get into it, we'll probably need a shed or at least a large lockable storage box. Broadband in the broad beans would be good too!

As to what we grow. Well, in consultation with Looby Loo, we think peas and strawberries would be good. Also herbs: some more of the perennials we like and the annual herbs we don't have space for in the back garden (which is very shady and a bit of a struggle for the perennial herbs too). Some of these we can buy as plants straight off. Garlic and shallots seem like a good idea too. Fennel: for the bulbs rather than the leaves. There's even space for some sweet corn. Looby Loo can plant some sunflowers.

The only worry is the ravens' lack of green claws. We could have the only scorched earth plot on the site.

---

* Make no mention of Tudors here!

** How many bundles of rhubarb can you buy for 13.35? In other words, if we did nothing with it, would we break even? And when?

Comments

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Enjoy!

(Me, I'd lift the rhubarb, just in case, and replant it after tilling.)

Peas are fun.

Radishes (even if nobody likes them!) offer instant gratification.

Shallots/green onions can also be very gratifying, and if used as a border, can help to scare away bugs. Then again, that's true of all the alliums.

If you do sweet corn, will you plant climbing beans along with it, as the AmerIndians do? And squash to keep the earth cool for the beans and corn, and help eliminate the need for weeding? I've always wanted to do that!!

If you're planting any tomatoes, borage makes a good interplant, because it attracts pollinating bugs. And its leaves are edible (cook up a bit like spinach, but brighter green in colour and flavour), and so are its pretty blue star-shaped flowers, which I used to love to toss atop a salad or float on top of, say, a squash soup.

Re:

[muninnhuginn]

All useful stuff. Thank you.

Borage will have to go on the list of herbs. "Brighter green ... in flavour" sounds interesting. We're very fond of spinach round here.

I love radishes. The first thing I ever grew--in the flower bed right beside the front door. Boggled a lot of folk that summer.

The rhubarb we brought home with us today was really enjoyable.