Allotment - March 2012 (New Beginnings)

Well its a new year (I know the year started in Jan) but in terms of the allotment March is the beginning for me this year. 


I will admit over the winter I have not been to the allotment even half as regularly as I should have been but this year I am back and armed with a plan.


The aims for 2012 are fairly straightforward:

• Improve the quality of the soil.
• Improve on the crops that grew well last year, be it size, quantity etc.
• Do not waste space on vegetables that realistically will not crop well outdoors (especially true for my allotment given its exposed location).
• Grow more typically 'Irish' vegetables. 

I like to think we learned a lot last year, I was not in truth, altogether happy with the return of vegetables we had but that was down to our own mistakes. I have learned however and this year I will be aiming for a much better return.

Half the fun is in the learning experience so I will accept it and move on. 

One mistake from last year was the crop protection from pests, we lost or had a lot of damage particularly to our turnips, cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower plants from various pests. Lesson learned: protect crops adequately

Hardening off was something that we didn't understand enough about until it was too late. We had a lovely variety of strong plants at home in a nicely controlled environment. Once they were exposed to conditions in the allotment however they (mostly) either withered and died or had severely stunted growth and failed to crop entirely or cropped miserably. Lesson learned: Start everything off in the allotment, under cloches / protection if needed but at least it will be stronger for being outdoors from the start of the year, additionally wait a little longer to sow to allow weather to heat up sufficiently. 

Compared to this time last year we are way ahead of ourselves, instead of building beds and filling them with soil in a mad panic I was turning over soil and adding manure (something I didn't get to do last year) so hopefully improving the quality of the soil.

I have also spent a few quid (£15) on a garden planning software to better help us plan what to grow, where to grow it and most importantly what to plant after it has cropped for succession growing. Last year for instance once the potatoes were dug up in August we just left the ground empty when we could have been growing something else making better use of the space available. That hopefully will not happen this year.

So I am full of beans, raring to go and almost impatient as most of the prep work is done, now all I can do is wait for April so I can start sowing.