Topic: Out with the old in with the new

[Tee Gee]

Hi All

I have been a bit busy this month rearranging my future!

Well as you may know I have been cutting back on my allotments e.g Four years ago I swapped a full plot for a half plot but after two years I cut back again and only cultivated half of it, I allowed another plot holder to cultivate the other half of it.

Well I have now handed in my notice for this plot so at the end of the year I will only have one plot.

Next year I guess it will be quite strange only working one plot considering I have been working two plots on this site since 1989.

I had
Plot 6 for 13 years
Plot 7 for 4years
Plot 19 for 4 years (This is the one I am giving up)
Plot 20 for 23 years (This the plot I am keeping)
Plot 21 f0r 12 years

As you see I have moved around a bit over the years!

Meanwhile I have been altering my garden at home to cater for when I will finally give up my last plot, although I am not sure when that will be.

I think I will play this from year to year for the time being!

Might go for another two years and that will mean I will have had Plot 20 for 25 years and been on the site for 30 years, we'll see!

In the mean time here are a few things I have been doing in a part of my garden at home;

This is as it was:



I have now removed my coldframe and replaced it with this:



This is an 8x6 Greenhouse I have moved up from one of my Allotments!

Inside I have chosen to have a paved floor rather than the soil borders I had on the allotment as I plan to go 100% Ring Culture!

I can get 14 Rings on the go at one time so all set for half a dozen Tomatoes,Half a dozen Peppers and a couple of Cucumbers which should cater for me and t'other half!



Through winter and spring it will replace the coldframe I have dispensed with as you can see here:



This arrangement will take 24 standard 14x8 trays which should be sufficient to cater for my one allotment!


In summer I will just remove the shelving behind the pots and voila I have my greenhouse back!



There is a ¼" hole drilled into the top of each ring so that I can fix one end of a vertical wire/s  into and fix the other end to an overhead wire.

This means I won't need canes to grow my tomatoes and cucumbers up as these will be tied into the vertical wires.

Over the last couple of years I have been testing out what I can put in the other two coldframes I have and I have found with successional sowing I can keep my self supplied with lettuce,spring onions,Radishes & carrots to go with my tomato,pepper & cucumber crop in the 8x6 ...so should be OK for summer salads!



So I think I am pretty much set up for my retirement from Allotments!

What do you think?

[rowbow]

Sounds good to me. 

[Obelixx]

Looks good too.

[caroline7758]

Enjoy your "retirement"- it still looks like hard work to me!

[Paulines7]

What compost do you use in those pots for your tomatoes and cucumbers, TeeGee?  I usually use planter compost in mine but it can work out rather expensive.  Is there a cheaper alternative?

[Duke Ellington]

I have read this with interest. We will loose our site to a housing development and myself and OH have decided we will not move to another allotment site. I have a green house in the garden which we will keep. I have decided to grow a few veg in the kitchen garden way of Geoff Hamilton in our back garden. I also plan to have four small raised beds one will be for strawberries, salad veg, root veg and maybe one for brassicas. It hasn’t happened yet but I often think about it because it will happen.
Life changes so I will change with it !!

Duke 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[Tee Gee]

This is my system.

http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Ring%20Culture/Ring%20Culture.htm

With the set up shown above (14 rings) I will probably use up to two 70 litre bags of multi- purpose compost and about half that in home made compost or rotted manure.

Another method I have used is; I never throw away used compost  so I sieve  out old root systems  and add some general slow release fertiliser to it.

Plus I have also been known to use 50-50 new compost and old.

Basically all you need is any growing medium.

I say this because you will be feeding the rings manually during the season, much more than you might do in natural borders or beds.

[Paulines7]

Thanks TeeGee for some very useful information.

I need to grow my tomatoes in new compost next year as I had blight this year so I will use multi purpose compost instead of buying planter bags as they are half the price.  I use my spent compost for seeds and seedlings and perhaps top up my raised beds with it, but will need to avoid using it for tomatoes because of the blight.

[Tee Gee]

but will need to avoid using it for tomatoes because of the blight.

Yes I forgot to mention that I use second hand compost provided it has not been in contact with diseased plants.

More often than not I use my seed compost after I have pricked out my seedlings into potting compost, as this is usually reasonably sterile!