The Allotment Book. Andi Clevely

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      YEAR 4: BRASSICAS

      BED C

      YEAR 1: ROOT CROPS

      CROPS TO GROW Grow root crops, leaf crops and extras like sweetcorn.

      CULTIVATION Dig in plenty of compost. After harvest sow green manure to dig in before Legumes in Year 2.

      YEAR 2: LEGUMES

      CROPS TO GROW Podded vegetables and the onion family.

      CULTIVATION Add plenty of manure or compost. After harvest plant onions to overwinter and overlap with Brassicas in Year 3.

      YEAR 3: BRASSICAS

      CROPS TO GROW Cabbage family interplanted with salads.

      CULTIVATION Add leafmould or more compost, forked in or as a mulch, and lime the soil if it is acid. In autumn mulch with more compost, to raise fertility for Root crops in Year 4.

      YEAR 4: ROOT CROPS

      COMPANION PLANTING

      Few plants grow in isolation, and an allotment is as much a community of interactive plants as any natural ecosystem. Plants can influence the welfare of their neighbours for good (symbiosis) or bad (allelopathy): beans do not grow well next to onions, rue suppresses growth and very little thrives under a walnut tree; on the other hand, legumes help root crops to grow well, chives can ward off carrot root flies, and elderberries will encourage soil organisms to decompose organic material.

      Crop rotation is one obvious form of companion planting, grouping plants with similar needs together. Another example is growing flowers attractive to pollinators or pest predators close to a vulnerable crop: poached egg plant (Limnanthes) flowers early and attracts hoverflies that can control aphids on broad beans, or you could grow a sacrificial alternative host like nasturtiums to lure aphids away from the beans.

      It is worth experimenting with various different combinations, and observing the results, which can vary from one season or variety to the next. Marigolds (Tagetes), for example, help prevent carrot root fly, and in the greenhouse they are used to discourage whitefly, but you need to choose a strong-smelling variety. Other combinations to explore might include planting tomatoes near asparagus, whose roots exude a substance toxic to tomato eelworms, while French beans interplanted among the brassicas can deter some cabbage root and leaf pests.

      choosing the bed system

      The benefits Dividing your growing area into separate beds is the simplest way to organize crop rotation on the ground (see pages 32–5). It makes the routine of tending the whole plot more manageable than when crops are arranged in long rows right across the allotment. The beds are attractive, which is also psychologically satisfying because they are easy to maintain and keep tidy. They also maximize yields because plants can be grown at closer spacings than when access is needed between rows. They are particularly appropriate for organic and biodynamic gardeners, since cultivation concentrates on maintaining very high levels of organic material and fertility in the soil.

      INCREASING YOUR SPACE

      Although your plot might seem adequate, even enormous at first, it can quickly fill up with conventionally spaced crops unless you adopt measures to stretch the available space. Gardening in beds might appear to increase the area devoted to paths, but the more intensive plant spacings used can actually raise total yields; forest gardening (see page 31) exploits the vertical dimension by adding extra tiers of productive plant growth above normal ground-level vegetables.

      Many plants can be grown for height rather than spread to save space. Fruits like apples, plums, gooseberries and redcurrants adapt readily to restricted forms such as cordons, espaliers and fans on posts and wires, or as short (often decorative) standards with branches spreading above ground level plants. Tall varieties of peas or beans and trailing forms of cucumbers or squashes can all be trained on upright structures to limit spread, releasing soil at their base for other shade-tolerant plants.

      If your plot lies on a slope, consider contouring this in a series of level terraces supported by low walls or banks that can be used for trailing and scrambling plants. Raised beds provide the same growing space as at ground level, but are more comfortable to manage and offer vertical support for extra crops grown round their sides. Fencing or dividing parts of the plot with screens provides sites for extra climbing plants, as do the sides of a fruit cage. And don’t forget shed walls, which can be clothed with seasonal or permanent climbers, together with shorter plants in window boxes and ground-level containers or on shelves (see page 42).

      The beds can be permanent, defined with fixed edging and separated by maintained paths, or marked out with string and pegs, with intervening paths trodden in. Most paths are straight, but elegant curves are equally practical and can introduce a welcome aesthetic element into a functional landscape. You will find that managing the beds from the paths rather than by walking between rows of vegetables eliminates compaction of the soil and so reduces the need to dig the beds regularly.

      The critical size for a bed is its width – it must allow you to reach the middle without walking on the soil. Most people find 90–120cm (3–4ft) is a comfortable width. Narrow beds may be as long as you like, although much more than 3m (10ft) means a long walk round to the other side. Plants are usually arranged in short rows from side to side for easy cultivation. Square beds, 90–120cm (3–4ft) each way and accessible from all sides, are good for gradually colonizing new ground, with each square devoted to a single crop.

      Both styles can be transformed into raised beds by building timber edges or walls to a convenient height, usually 10–20cm (4–8in) or as much as 60cm (2ft) if you have difficulty with bending or mobility. A raised bed of this kind is also an effective remedy for serious drainage problems. Paths should be at least 30cm (12in) wide.

      

      No-dig beds Annual digging can destroy soil structure, dry out light soils and bring more weed seeds to the surface to germinate. If you adopt a minimal cultivation or ‘no-dig’ policy, remember that it is worth deeply digging over the plot or individual beds initially, to open up heavy or compacted ground, improve aeration and work in manure or compost. Thereafter it should be enough to cultivate the top 10–20cm (4–8in) of soil, where root growth tends to be concentrated, loosening the surface and turning in annual dressings or 8cm-(3in-) deep mulches of organic material. Decreasing yields or poor drainage will indicate if deep digging and manuring will need to be repeated in the future.

      allotment story

      ON THE WATERFRONT

      Many allotment sites have a long history, sometimes stretching back centuries, and even millennia in the case of the floating gardens of Amiens, in the French region of Picardie.

      Not far from the cathedral the River Somme flows through the city, across a low marshy floodplain that was first drained by the Romans when France was part of Gaul. They cultivated the reclaimed ground to produce vegetables to feed the troops, a practice that has continued to this day. The land is liable to flood, which replenished its fertility and often allowed three main crops a year to be raised СКАЧАТЬ