Kitchen Garden Forum

My OH and I have been discussing what we want to grow next year, as we want to have some time off. We realised that this year we have not ridden our mountain bikes since last April when we were on holiday. We used to ride them most weekends, as in serious rides. We have hardly done the walking that we used to do. Our allotment has overtaken us.

This year I grew loads of flowers from seed, which from sowing, potting on etc and planting out have taken a lot of time. They look fab but even though I really love doing it we have realised that it is taking too much of our time. Watering along took ages. Our tomatoes, aubergines, peppers and cucumbers were grown in the polytunnel. The only aubergine that flowered into fruit got nibbled by something unknown. The three tomatoes I grew from seed hardly produced anything. The three I bought already growing have done really well. Same with the cucumbers bought ones have done better, which tells me something.

Next year we have decided that we need to grow things that look after themselves and wont need too much tlc.

I need some suggestions for sowing, planting etc to save us working so much. Otherwise we might end up getting rid of our allotment and I really don’t want to do that. I have to find ways of making things work or else.

I thought about planting broad beans and peas through either black plastic or weed suppressant to save on weeding.

We have had our allotment for 11 years and have put many hours in making raised beds and draining, fencing, putting up a polytunnel, but I feel that it has over taken us and we are not doing the things we used to do. I want to get our lives back but keep the allotment. Sorry for the long post, I know I have not had time to even come on here very often recently, Suggestions please. Thank you for the birthday wishes.

Woven black plastic membrane and plant Squashes in sensibly spaced holes. Squashes ramble and cover the membrane, just the odd weed in the holes next to the Squashes, adding a bottomless upside-down 2L bottle with a cane through it in each hole aids watering. Remove dead plants in autumn, peel off membrane in spring. I also weigh it down round the edge with lengths of pipe & angle iron rolled onto an extra foot of membrane, plus use pallets & old carpet as additional centre weights. Covers five rod of my twenty each year and weeds are fewer the following season.

I suggest try turning some beds over to no dig and mulch well, try it where your runner beans grew tall, instead of composting cut and spread the bean vines over the ground, leave the roots in, top with dried weeds that are not seeding or straw from a bale, overwinter the worms will pull down and incorporate the lower layers of mulch into the soil. You need a thick layer to stop weeds coming through, in spring plant your follow on crop through the mulch. Digging turns up new weed seeds if you don't dig, and suppress weeds, you will get less and less weeds. Also the few that do make it through the mulch pull out very easily from soil that has been well worked by the worms. You could even plant some winter greens through the mulch and let nature get on with it.
Another suggestion - plant more perrennial veg and fruit so that there is less work with seeds and seedlings.
Plant self seeders like land cress, and nasturtium and pot marigolds and borage which will self seed , they are are useable in salads and attract pollinators to your plot,, and help keep pests away from plants. I thin out any that get in the way for more mulch or compost or to feed to the chickens.
Any bare soil plant green manure before its overtaken by weeds.

We're covering up some of our veg beds next year too, mainly because I'm working away from home during the week and Lyndon has struggled to keep on top if it all without my daily input.

Mind you, I've done no gardening for the last 2 weekends, because I've broken my foot. I'm in good company though - James Martin has broken his too.

We're going to manure/mulch and then cover all the plots we don't need. However, we're going to start more veg and salads early, in the tunnels. That worked well this year, but we didn't grow enough. We're also going to grow all our potatoes in tubs. We did the earlies that way this year and we've just emptied the last one this weekend. They've been excellent.

Hope when James was in hospital the food was good! We watched his Operation hospital Food and it was really interesting

A broken foot is a bit like when you break your ribs - there's little you can do apart from keep them in situ and reduce the welling by elevation, so I doubt very much if James got to eat any hospital food. I certainly didn't and I've got 7 broken bones compared to his 2.

It was a good programme though, wasn't it? I wouldn't want to produce 3 courses a day for £3.49.