The Allotment Book

Covers Protective sheets such as transparent plastic film and woven horticultural fleece can be used to cover crops and exclude a couple of degrees of frost. Horticultural fleece is light and permeable, and may be left in place over the lifetime of a crop for warmth or protection from pests or diseases, floating higher as the plants grow.

Cloches Glass sheets (discarded window panes, for example) are joined with special clips (see page 146) or a home-made arrangement of clothes pegs, string or wire to make tents for covering rows or individual plants. Traditional lantern and commercial barn or tent cloches are also available. Plastic cloches and continuous mini-tunnels of film supported by wire hoops can cover a large area. Use cloches early and late in the year to add several weeks to the growing season.

SEE ALSO ▸ The greenhouse year pages 170–4 The cold frame year page 175

USING A COLD FRAME

▸ Spread a layer of gravel over a weed-proof membrane if you intend to use the frame for containers or for trays and plugs of seedlings (below).

▸ Fit a hinged lid with casement stays or notch a strip of wood to make a support for adjusting ventilation. Hinge the lid and prop it open to ventilate the cold frame during the day (bottom), then close it at night to keep in the heat.

▸ When not in use, prevent wooden frames from rotting by lifting them clear of the ground with a block at each corner.

▸ Stand pots and trays on a layer of gravel over a woven plastic membrane to suppress weeds and deter slugs and snails.

▸ Treat a soil-based frame like an extra vegetable bed: water, manure, mulch and rotate crops as you would in the open ground.

Fruit cages If you can disperse fruit around the plot, it is possible to harvest good crops from unprotected plants without significant losses to birds or squirrels. But smaller plantings, especially of attractive fruit such as redcurrants, raspberries, strawberries and blueberries, may be stripped before they even show colour, and some kind of protection could be vital.

An individual bush can be enclosed with netting draped like a tent over 3–4 flexible canes arched to meet at the top, where they are tied. Protect a row of raspberries or cordon redcurrants by erecting a post at each end, with several timber cross-pieces, like a telegraph pole: attach wire to these, stretched from one end of the row to the other, and arrange curtains of netting over the wires and clear of the fruit.

Gathering vulnerable fruit together in a cage is a more permanent solution. Various ready-made cages are available to buy, or you can build your own from strong bamboo canes, coppiced hazel poles or metal pipes. Erect uprights 1.8–2.1m (6–7ft) high for clear headroom, space them about 1.8m (6ft) apart, and join their tops with cross bars to support the roof. Clad the sides with 1–2cm (

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;–

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in) mesh plastic or wire netting (but note that squirrels easily chew through plastic), and the roof with 2cm (

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in) plastic netting.

RECYCLING SCAFFOLDING

Discarded scaffolding poles and their unions are a valuable resource for a host of structures on the plot. Use them, for example, to build fruit cages and low frames round brassica beds for netting against birds in winter; use them as row supports for runner beans or sweet peas and trained fruit like raspberries or tree-fruit cordons and espaliers; also for arches over paths, planted with squash, climbing cucumbers and thornless brambles.

Either fold back part of the side netting for access or add a hinged door, but make sure this fits tightly. The roof net can be removed after fruit crops are harvested to allow birds to clean up any pests, but leave it in place if finches tend to attack the fruit buds in winter. However, the roof should always be taken off if snow is forecast. Open the door or (where this is possible) roll up the sides while the fruit is flowering, to admit pollinating insects.

Somewhere to sit As in any other garden, an allotment plot should have a place for you to recover from hard work, entertain friends and other plot-holders, or just plan and dream. It doesn’t matter whether you choose to sit on an upturned bucket or a cast-off chaise longue, although comfort is obviously important.

Collapsible furniture such as picnic tables or deck chairs can be stored safely in a locked shed. Permanent structures like benches or café tables need to be secured by bolting them to the shed wall or anchoring them with metal straps to pegs or piles driven firmly into the ground. Treat your furniture to an annual spring clean: treat or paint metal with rust-proofing, and paint or oil timber pieces to keep rot and woodworm at bay.

FAMILY AREAS

Looking after a plot is often a family activity that can be made more appealing to children by creating one or two areas especially for them. While you might feel that a small lawn and its attendant mowing is a waste of space and effort, other places for play will often fit in unobtrusively.

▸ Perhaps the most popular piece of equipment is a swing, easily made from a strong board, old tyre or special rubber safety seat suspended on lengths of rope from a tree branch. Ropes on their own or a rope ladder may be suitable, but check for wear once or twice a year.

▸ Younger children might prefer a sand pit, made from a sunken rigid pond liner filled with clean silver sand; when no longer used, the sand can be incorporated into potting compost, and the pit transformed into a pond.

▸ If fires are allowed on site, construct a simple fire pit for those end-of-day family gatherings. Excavate a circular hole a spit or so deep and line it with 3–4 courses of bricks to form a neat ring wall. A fire of wood offcuts and dry prunings will make a safe fire, where you can bake some of your own foil-wrapped potatoes.

Watering equipment

Changing environmental conditions mean that conserving water is becoming a priority for many, and if you need to walk any distance with a full can of mains water, making the most of what is available can be imperative.

COLLECTING & STORING Rain is the obvious source of water, apart from the site tap, and you need to arrange ways to collect it for use during dry periods. Fit guttering and downpipes to all roofs and collect the water in a butt. If possible, attach an overflow to a second container, or direct surplus water to a nearby wildlife pond. To supplement the supply, run sloping lengths of guttering along fences and walls, and leave out buckets in rainy weather. Bring from home containers of ‘grey’ water (domestic waste from washing and bathing) and keep in a separate tank for watering permanent crops. Feed a pond with water from gullies, drains and overflows from water butts, and make sure it is deep enough for submerging a watering can. If the ground lies wet or waterlogged, lay drains leading to a pond or buried tank.

Water butts are often available from local authorities or discounted from the allotment site office. Substitutes include plastic dustbins, fruit barrels, old baths, discarded water tanks and cisterns and oil drums. Make sure you cover them with lids in dry weather to reduce evaporation.

SEE ALSO ▸ Making your own compost pages 116–17 Managing water pages 148–9 Fertilizers & feeding pages 150–1

COMPOST BINS

The tidiest and most efficient way to make compost (see pages 116–17) is to assemble all the ingredients in a bin. (Having two bins is preferable, though: after you have filled one bin, leave the contents to decompose while you fill the second.) There are various kinds, from simple folding corrugated plastic squares to sophisticated models with liquid reservoirs, insulating jackets and integral top blankets. Many local authorities offer discounted bins.

Building your own compost bin is an easy and inexpensive alternative, using a simple style and waste materials. Possibilities include:

▸ wire mesh arranged round four corner stakes to make a square container, lined with cardboard for insulation.

▸ a large sturdy cardboard box with holes cut in the base and sides; this rots down with the contents.

▸ complete builder’s pallets set on edge and tied or wired together; pack the cavities with newspapers or straw.

▸ a clean oil drum or plastic barrel, perforated with 2.5cm (1in) holes in the base and about halfway up the sides of the drum.

▸ a plastic dustbin raised on concrete blocks: drill holes in the base and catch the liquid in a tin.

MAKING A HOT BED

Fresh manure or green waste heats up as it decays. A hot bed can use this warmth to help raise early crops and provide extra growing space later in the season. If you can get a load of fresh farmyard manure or make a new compost heap in late winter, pack the material inside a timber container (old pallet boards are ideal). Adding moist tree leaves to the manure helps to moderate the initial surge of heat and the subsequent cooling. Cover and leave to warm up for two weeks.

Spread a 10–15cm (4–6in) layer of sieved soil over the heap, and top with a portable cold frame. Sow this with early radishes and carrots or turnips in rows, interplanted with young lettuces started in early winter. Pull the radishes 3–4 weeks later, leaving the lettuces to finish bulking up. When these are cleared, replace with summer cauliflower plants, and finally thin the carrots or turnips. All should be harvested in time to plant courgettes, marrows or cucumbers for summer. In the autumn, clear the plants and empty the entire contents of the hot bed for digging in.

Tools Good tools help to make light work of the allotment routine. Buy the best, use them sensitively and maintain them well, and they could give a lifetime’s service; regular use will condition them until they are comfortable and familiar, like an old gardening jacket or pair of boots.

CHOOSING TOOLS Buying cheap tools is a false economy, as they rarely perform well or last long, and the experience could disillusion you. Go for top quality, and be prepared to spend money; handle the tool before buying (never buy unseen), and ask advice if you are in doubt. Test it for size, weight and balance: you need to be confident about possibly using it for long periods without tiring. Consider the materials the tool is made from. An expensive stainless steel spade is easier to use and to clean when digging clay, for example, but might be unjustifiably costly if your soil is light and sandy; a round-tined rake is more durable in stony soil than one with flat pressed tines; a trowel with a brightly painted handle is easier to find in undergrowth.

TOOL CARE

▸ Clean your tools regularly and particularly thoroughly before storing them for any length of time.

▸ Pay special attention to soil on the blades and handles, where it can set hard and cause discomfort, and sap or resin deposits on pruning tools, which can be hard to clean once dry.

▸ Collect up all tools and equipment at the end of each day: rain does them no good, and overlooked tools are easily lost or stolen.