Reforming the allotment beds

2025-05-10 12:37

I started giving my allotment a bit of much needed love again today. I get motivation at the weirdest times. We're coming into the colder seasons here so things are slow in the garden. I guess I just like the slower pace. I've just harvested my last tomatoes, and have started making pumpkin soup from my pumpkin harvest which is a sign of the season. Down at the allotment I can grow broad beans and garlic over winter though, which tends to work really well at this spot. It's a bit late, but I think I can squeeze in a last minute garlic sowing.

Back in 2020 I was gifted a truckload of horse poop which got this plot started. I'm a fan of no-dig gardening so after cutting the grass as low as possible, plonking down some cardboard, dumping the horse poop/dirt on top, forming up 5x 750mm wide beds with 250m spacing (classic Eliot Coleman, Curtis Stone and Jean Martin-Fortier inspired setup), I planted straight in with potatoes to begin with, then later garlic, broad beans and onions. I rotate as best I remember. Here it is on first planting late Spring 2020 (just potatoes):

Note I'm only using half my space down there, which is more than enough.

I've been on and off down there with upkeep, as it goes with allotments. I've been strategic with the crops I plant there though, generally slow-to-maturity and less water-hungry plants, that way if I don't get down there they can fend for themselves. All the other goodies go in my backyard.

Anyway, right now a number of grasses are taking reign again, and we had a good downpour over the last couple of days, so it's a prime time to get in there. I started with the borders, chopping through with a mattock:

Then I created just two beds to begin with. These are going to be for garlic, which I'll plant tomorrow, after I pull out as many grass rhizomes as I can:

I'm only going with two beds because last year's broad beans have been self sprouting and I've decided to leave it to keep doing its thing. Also, I don't need more than two rows of garlic. I have been moving all the seeds across when I dig them up, and doing a bit of weeding around as I go. It's very therapeutic. After winter I will chop them into the soil (they're great nitrogen-fixing plants) and form up the remaining beds at that time. Potatoes and onions will go in there not long after.

I came across some kind of archaeological pre-historic lizard creature in the process.

So I didn't do much, but it was nice to get my hands in the dirt, and it was a beautiful crisp morning to be down there. The soil is smelling and feeling really healthy. I found some garlic sprouting too, which I've set aside for planting with my other saved cloves tomorrow. I love finding little surprises from previous seasons. I purposely let things seed for that reason. Look forward to getting down there again tomorrow.