Allotment: Woo Hoooo!!! :) :) :)

[jennyjj01]

Most herbs are a doddle and you can always buy supermarket ones and divvy them up to plant out. This is how I got my chives ten years ago & still going strong. Also a good bet for parsley and thyme while a cut stem of rosemary will root in a cup of water given a couple of weeks in the warm.

There is to be a square metre of herbs. I'll be happy if I can get chives, coriander and rosemary. But the herbs I use most of, cumin, oregano, would probably not grow in this climate. I'm toying with the idea of trying Ginger, and of course there will be garlic.
I've never tried sorrel or comfrey. Not sure about fennel. Don't use much sage or parsley.

[Arzosah]

Oregano grows in the south of England - it self seeds in my garden

[jennyjj01]

On the topic of frugal spuds.....

Lidl have their 19p veg today. So, grabbed a 1.5kg bag of small spuds. They're labelled as Desiree. Googling that, they can be grown as an early main.

https://gardenn.co.uk/grow-desiree-potatoes/
"You can also treat the Desiree potato as an early maincrop if there is a demand for it early in the season. Leaving them in the ground after the harvest date leads to larger potatoes."

Sounds like a plan!

At 15p/kg, there's a couple of bags set aside to be chitted and sowed as my first crop. I just need to keep them viable for a couple of months.

I've started looking for anything that indicates the variety on store spuds.

[steptoe]

On the topic of frugal spuds.....

Lidl have their 19p veg today. So, grabbed a 1.5kg bag of small spuds. They're labelled as Desiree. Googling that, they can be grown as an early main.

https://gardenn.co.uk/grow-desiree-potatoes/
"You can also treat the Desiree potato as an early maincrop if there is a demand for it early in the season. Leaving them in the ground after the harvest date leads to larger potatoes."

Sounds like a plan!

At 15p/kg, there's a couple of bags set aside to be chitted and sowed as my first crop. I just need to keep them viable for a couple of months.

I've started looking for anything that indicates the variety on store spuds.

HI jen please be careful using shop brought non seed potatos i know some say therte is no diofference but there is seed spuds have to come from blight free crop where as normal shop spuds can have blight , we broguht some lovely looking jackets and well you guessed it 3 had blight , also you might find that if someone at the allotment speaks to you and you dropped it in the convo they may well have a rule about doing the said shop potatos .
Also check what people grow there as desiree i love we grew these as kids and in the sand soil at the farm got huge crops but when i tried them here in the west mids i got well nothing short of rubbish small scabby horrors , i now grow wilja here as most farms local grow that so if farms grow them they got to show a fair return .

Ok well have fun

PS if buying seed spuds ifthere is a shop on site you might get a good deal if not wait for the b & q sales they sell them off at 10p a bag for 2.5kg , i get mine most times there and get great bargains , if they have huge sprout on you can remove somne as long as there are still sprout tips coming on wink wink frugal am i lol the wife said penny pincher but hey a bargain is a bargain and we got to go out today and thanks for the lidi heads up

[jennyjj01]

Anyways. Questions for you experts so I can hit the ground running.
I'm looking for maximum return on investment in time and money. I know that will mean compromises.
.....

Any tips on what mistakes I'll likely make? I already know impatience and frugality are problems.

Soooooo Excited! Can you tell?

OMG. I had a tour.
I'd estimated the 75sqm plot to be the size of my back garden. But I was out by a factor of two. It's HOOOOOGE. Even the compost heap is about 2m high.
Untended. And overgrown. Apart from a few brambles, there's nothing to keep and the weeds are taller than me.
Remember I said it's not to be a money pit?! Well, I could (but won't) spend a merry fortune just hiring power tools to clear it.
If I planted it with the veg we normally eat, it would produce far more than we can use.

The soil looks good. Soft, dig-able, sandy. There's no structures or raised beds, yet
So Idiot's guide to clearing it? Cover it with a tarpaulin to kill it back a bit, then rake and dig it out? I'm going to divi the job up and not break my back.
Which weeds do I not try to compost?

Other allotments use black membrane stuff. Would a regular blue B&M tarp do the trick just as well?

Should I try to retain those brambles?

[Ara]

If it was my allotment, I would cover the lot with something that excludes the light (doesn't really matter what) and gradually work on it a bit at a time. If you clear it all, you won't have time to plant it all before the weeds come back. Does the ruling body have its own ideas about what you can and can't use to cover the soil? Trying to do too much too soon ends up with you unable to move as your muscles are so sore (don't ask). You will make your own mistakes, that's all part of the fun. One of mine was to forget what I'd planted where because "I'll remember". Next time I labelled all my rows/beds. If there's bindweed, horsetail or ground elder, (the latter is actually edible, supposed to have been introduced by the Romans as a pot herb) don't compost them unless they've been burnt or fully dried out in the sun. I would keep the brambles for now. If you decide later that you don't want them, remove them. It seems as if you will have enough to be going on with for now.
Most of all, have fun!

[jennyjj01]

If it was my allotment, I would cover the lot with something that excludes the light (doesn't really matter what) and gradually work on it a bit at a time. If you clear it all, you won't have time to plant it all before the weeds come back. Does the ruling body have its own ideas about what you can and can't use to cover the soil? Trying to do too much too soon ends up with you unable to move as your muscles are so sore (don't ask). You will make your own mistakes, that's all part of the fun. One of mine was to forget what I'd planted where because "I'll remember". Next time I labelled all my rows/beds. If there's bindweed, horsetail or ground elder, (the latter is actually edible, supposed to have been introduced by the Romans as a pot herb) don't compost them unless they've been burnt or fully dried out in the sun. I would keep the brambles for now. If you decide later that you don't want them, remove them. It seems as if you will have enough to be going on with for now.
Most of all, have fun!

There are some nasty looking weeds. I need to ID them. I wonder what would happen if I found some japanese knotweed?
I had a chat with the fellow that showed me round. He said the soil is good, but there are things that might ruin onions or leeks.
The rules are such that I could not bring carpet on site, e.g. to cover compost heap. Most use black membrane stuff to clear ground, but I plan to use what i already have, and that's great big tarps. I don't think bonfires are permitted, but maybe garden incinerators. There's draconian "cultivate it or lose it" terms with some strict targets of percentage cultivation by month. BUT, the consensus seems to be that as long as we show some progress, it won't be a problem. Not wanting to over-do the digging, I'm reading up on best practice which seems to be to clear a bit sow a bit, clear a bit more, sow a bit more, pacing right through the year if needs be. If I filled it all up with veg, it would be WAY beyond what we could consume. Pity I can't grow oranges, bananas and kiwi fruits.

I was SHOCKED that though they have a waiting list, they have at least two plots that have not been cultivated at all this year. If they are so strict on cultivating it, they could have removed two tenants just there.

[GillyBee]

Tarps will work but if they let light though you would need to put cardboard or newspaper down underneath them.
It sounds as if the plot has white rot if there are warnings about onions and garlic. Leeks will also be affected. There is no official treatment for this. Some people have had good success by treating the soil with garlic powder from the local asian supermarket every month or two from spring to autumn for a couple of years and then trying onions again.
The garlic powder tricks the white rot spores iton germinating but there is nothing for them to eat so they die.
There was a researcher about ten years ago in California saying this worked for the organic garlic growers but all has gone quiet on the net since he retired.

[jansman]

Tarps will work but if they let light though you would need to put cardboard or newspaper down underneath them.
It sounds as if the plot has white rot if there are warnings about onions and garlic. Leeks will also be affected. There is no official treatment for this. Some people have had good success by treating the soil with garlic powder from the local asian supermarket every month or two from spring to autumn for a couple of years and then trying onions again.
The garlic powder tricks the white rot spores iton germinating but there is nothing for them to eat so they die.
There was a researcher about ten years ago in California saying this worked for the organic garlic growers but all has gone quiet on the net since he retired.

White Rot is wicked. I grow Egyptian and Welsh onion - perennial which is brilliant- and it works! Haven’t grown so called proper for a decade easily,but the perennial are so easy.

[steptoe]

e.

Jen one bit of advice if you find bindweed i am guessing you whta it is , don't try and dig it out the roots break and you spread it , poke a bamboo cane in where it is and let it grow up the pole and get a nice bushy plant then spray with roundup , i know people poo poo roundup but it is the very best anbd only thing we found to kill bindweed .

Please don't use carpet it is a bark on allotmetn sites , our plot had some fool use it and well it is nasty to dig and when yo usa a rotovator it is a real pain in the bottom .

Just go slow and steady and most of all enjoy it , if it becomes to much of a chore and not fun then it is no fun

Oh forgot to say if you lived close you would be welcome to use my mantis tiller , i also have the furrow attachment for the spuds and so on most not used as when we moved here well i just do basic now