Allotments 4 All
Allotment Stuff => The Basics => Topic started by: Pescador on February 09, 2013, 11:29:16
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I know there was a fair amount of discussion about this last summer, and there will be a huge difference of opinion depending on location , soil type etc.
The reason I'm raising the question again, is that I've just completed my "Balance Sheet" of costs v value of produce harvested.
From a 10 pole plot, the value of produce harvested was £688 and costs of approx £200.
I was pleasantly surprised to see such positive figures, especially as there were some really poor crops, and too much empty space at various times of the year.
If we can get a half sensible growing year in 2013 I should be able to get the value close to £1000 with similar costs!
(Value of excercise, fresh air, socialising, and cost of labour excluded!!)
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It certainly was for me. Hardly any potatoes, just a bit of winter veg. Ground still completely sodden and currently raining. Last week tried to scrape some of the 6"- 8" deep mud off some of the gravel drive. Water lying in pools in the fields and a small spring which opening up in the greenhouse floor has been running continually since Sept. :BangHead:
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I was just talking about this with my wife and we ended up not having a bad year at all. I couldn't quantify it but I am still eating spunds, carrots, Mooli, Parsnips, beetroot, squash, chilis, garlic, kale and shallots plus frozen pasata. I think my location (Lonndon) helps and we are on a slope so we get no surface puddling. Fruit was a write off though and onions were a disaster but overall I came out on top..
However even on our plot most people suffered from fungal disease all year and some folks shut up shop early.
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Like you I think I made a profit last year easily. I put my costs more like £300 I'm a seedoholic and bought more fruit bushes. But reckon to have at least £20 of veg most weeks. (Still got parsnips, cabbage, sprouts and parsley). Then there are raspberries and I got £200 worth of them. So I think I easily got £1000 of produce. Then I gave my daughter veg as well. She had a large vegi box to take on holiday. One part of mine is sloped and normally I have to spend a great deal of time watering. Strawberries, carrots terrible.
But a friend of mine: her site was a wipeout. Just a soggy mess for weeks on end. It was heart breaking for her. It was more like a bog than an allotment. She still has no idea when it might be workable again. At the moment it's like a rice paddy field. The top soil is slowly being washed away. Her raspberry plants have simply rotten and died. Water is not draining into the soil it is oozing out.
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I listened to everyone moaning last year but on the whole I was happy, I got a great crop of fruit, great onions, cabbages, broad beans, aubergines, chilli's, rhubarb tomatoes. Also won the RHS Banksian Medal at our show so it was a good year for me.
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you could of been talking about my plot digeroo. went the plot today to get it ready for planting and sunk upto the top of my wellies so its back to the drawing board for us :BangHead:
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Still have a bag of desiree spuds, 14 large onions, leeks and winter cabbages, freezer full of runner and french beans, tomato sauce, frozen courgettes, garlic, peas etc. So, 2012 wasn't bad here
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I listened to everyone moaning last year but on the whole I was happy, I got a great crop of fruit, great onions, cabbages, broad beans, aubergines, chilli's, rhubarb tomatoes. Also won the RHS Banksian Medal at our show so it was a good year for me.
Congratulations!!
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It was not a good year for me but it could have been better if I had been more on the ball.
It rained and we were flooded till the start of June by that time I was pretty much wiping out the season in my head so didn't give it my best shot, then we very suddenly had a tremendously warm long summer which would have grown tons of stuff if my mind had not taken a vacation. The interest just wasn't there like it usually is.
Good lesson learned...be ready to replant and not chuck the towel in too soon.
XX Jeannine
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It was by some considerable distance the worst season that I have experienced in 30+ years of growing.
This did not mean that it was a write-off. Fruit was generally good, I managed my best ever crop of sprouts, salads were fine while carrots, beetroot, runners and climbing french were ok.
However, I lost all my tomatoes to blight for the the first time while the potato crop was much reduced also due to the blight and most of the celery went to seed. The weight of crops generally was a fair bit down on a typical year.
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Having to buy potatoes- hate having to do that, but only just run out of carrots.
Still got bottled tomatoes, sharks fin melon in the bedrooms and freezer full of stuff though.
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I don't do the costings but didn't have too bad a year
Still got plenty of onions, not the biggest this year but plenty of them
Spuds again not the biggest but did OK, still have a few left but have been buying Jacket size
Beans were a plenty but my own fault not picking them regular enough, the same with peas
Cabbages were eaten by flying rats, we did eat a few but again my fault for not covering them
Strawberry's didn't do well
Beetroot were OK
Sweetcorn, carrots and springies were disappointing
Celery did well but again I left it and it got frosted
Not that bad but I don't think we had as much rain as most of you
Just missed the old currant bun. :sunny: :wave:
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For me yes- had tomato blight for the 1st time, frequent wind damage and low yields because of this and cooler temperatures in summer months. No drought though and need to water was less. If this year is the same I'll have to change my entire approach.
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I had reasonable crops of everything, fruit as well as veg, so it was not a bad year. Yes, we had lots of rain, less sun and cooler than usual, but in Glasgow we are used to coping with difficult weather and you adjust and take the required action. Even now, I am still harvesting greens and leeks, as well as watercress and various green herby leaves.
And the new garlic is now up and looking good. Look on the positive!!
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Thanks Pumpkinlover. I'm pretty chuffed, my husband thinks he might have to widen the doorways to get my head through though!
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Right weather for watercress.
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I forgot to mention I've had some good parsnips and still a line left in the ground. :coffee2:
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I didn't do costings but had a fair year, certainly in profit. Still got sprouts, leeks, parsnips, swede and cabbages left in the ground and onions in the shed and broad beans in the freezer. My fruit was a little disappointing though, not much of any except rhubarb, and no apples from my 2 trees. I do intend to try and make a costings list this year........
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Don't do costings otherwise would know I'd be well out of pocket due to low prices in Birmingham fruit and veg market.
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Well my onions, brussels, runners, raspberries, blackcurrants were more than okay as surprisingly was my sweetcorn. The biggest disasters were strawberries, leeks and potatoes. Courgettes and cucumber were way down compared to normal, but I normally end up with a surplus - this year it was the neighbours that were disappointed.
Regards
Bluecar
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I thought 2012 was a ghastly year. Yes I had some great crops (along with some spectacular failures) but the weather was foul and gardening wasn't a pleasure. For me it's the doing of it that is most important and that was not good at all.
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I had endless problems, and the plot was so waterlogged for a significant part of the year that crops wouldn't grow. My beans went in at the end of May, for instance, and didn't start growing till midsummer. Were the people who did better away from streams?
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hello. I am a newbie to this forum but thought I would join this chat I live in Barnsley S Yorks I have had my allotment for 8 years did not find 2012 as good as other years especially potatoes but I still have some parsnips in which have been quite good also leeks and winter cabbage which will hopefully come out this week because I want to start warming the soil ready for some planting - weather permitting
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Wasn't THAT bad ................. BUT it definitely wasn't a year for what is called 'warm-weather crops'. And waterlogging and flooding made even 'cool weather crops' tricky. Granted, everything that usually suffers because we are so dry (normal years) when my 600 gallons of stored rainwater only goes so far, did well - if it wasn't flooded. But last year even the courgettes didn't give their usual bounty - and that is saying something. Outdoor tomato growing was near impossible too.
Peas and lettuce and chard were good. Potatoes were partly lost to flooding, partly better than usual because of better watering. Beans were very late and not all varieties liked the extra moisture. Broad beans excellent here too. Winter squash was very poor and the melons were a write-off.
Growing a wide variety of things helps in an unusual year. There is always something that makes it. Just never know what we are going to eat.
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hello. I am a newbie to this forum but thought I would join this chat I live in Barnsley S Yorks I have had my allotment for 8 years did not find 2012 as good as other years especially potatoes but I still have some parsnips in which have been quite good also leeks and winter cabbage which will hopefully come out this week because I want to start warming the soil ready for some planting - weather permitting
Welcome cudsey. Hope you will feel at home here very soon.
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It was 'that' bad....wasn't totally cropless but I've never had it as bad. Got some potatoes, some onions, brassicas did ok...all the very basic crops didn't fail. My tomato crop (indoors) was almost non-existing, cucumbers didn't do much better neither.
BUT....chillies and peppers did well...and the painted mountain corn!? :dontknow: :icon_cheers:
I did have temptation moment of locking the allotment gate and chucking the key away until start of another growing season...but I'm slowly getting over it and started tinkering with the compost again.. :toothy10:
Now we need to get rid of this white stuff...
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Yes, enough said.
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I live in the Rhymney Valley South Wales and to be honest it was a total washout had a few runner beans and some toms but compared to the year before it was a disaster - closed the allotment in mid sept and apart from some winter veg and a few things in the greenhouse i have left it alone until yesterday - hope this year is better for everyone
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I took my lottie on last year so I was mostly pre-occupied with clearing the ground and getting it to look more like a lottie and less like a jungle!
However I grow in my garden too. Unfortunately I have a brook running under my back garden, meaning that if we get a lot of rain it gets VERY wet. What did we have a lot of last year?
However I did manage to get a 7 pound yield of green shaft peas and some decent swede from the garden. My tomatoes weren't too bad either (Grown in a raised planter) although I had to pick them when still green and finish them in the kitchen as it was starting to get cooler. Unfortunately, as for my courgettes, beans, corn and potatoes (Blight hit the spuds hard) the least said the better!
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Yes 2012 was a really bad year for me I had major surgery twice so didn't get to lottie. Much was all left to hubby hoping 2013 is going to be better year, but as of now not so had minor surgery in jan and also my daddy died ....
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Welcome Cudsey and waterlooroader! lets hope we all get a better 2013! :toothy10:
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Like Susan my OH had major surgery twice within days, a 3 day stay became a 12 day hospital stay & visiting nurse or hospital for 6 weeks post surgery, add to that the wet weather & for us it was a carp year but onwards & upwards this year.
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I’m green with jealousy because of all the things you still have in the earth! My plot has been deep frozen since Christmas. I had covered leeks with leaves and dug them up - but the tops were frozen and slimy. Br. sprouts Ok - and that’s it. And it’s snowing now! I long to start again - but the earth is like concrete.
And the weather forecast? It may get above freezing on Thursday - daytime. Frost again at night!
HELP!
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It wasn't a too bad year for me either, I did get less than I normally would, but it was still good. Obviously slugs were a problem and my potatoes took a big hit, but most things were ok, though with somethings I had to sow two or three times to get a crop e.g french beans.
It appears that different places had problems with different crops depending on rainfall, temperatures, sunshine etc in 2012. I think the safest plan is to grow a wide variety of vegetables, as there will always be some that do better than others, depending on the weather conditions. That way, you will always have something to harvest after all our hard work.
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I had a look at Brown Envelope Seeds' site earlier. They have no French beans at all as the crop failed last year.
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For the first time ever we are short of potatoes now; in the past we had more than enough potatoes till the new ones came in, and usually plenty to give away as well. This year, for the first time, we have to buy in cabbages. In fact I can't remember a year when we had to buy so much in.
I used to be proud that we could feed ourselves, in spite of not having a greenhouse or cloches. :sad10:
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Well it certainly wasn't a good year but we did less badly than others on our lotty, in part due to the raised beds the OH made.
We have just come to the end of the spuds..... really hate buying spuds, just don't taste the same.
We still have leeks and celeriac left, a few runners, loads of parsnips and quite a few bags of frozen broad beans. Still have three trays of squash left.
We had crops from most of the veg we grew except the aubergines.
We had broccolli, broad beans, french and runners, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach peas, mangetoutes, cabbages. Grew swede and parsnips for the first time and they were really good. Loads of beetroot although the successional sowing didn't work 'cos of the weather they all arrived together like the carrots and they were very late.
Got quite a few strawberries from the garden, but they didn't have the sweetness of last year. the raspberries were quite good.
It was very disheartening at times when plants gave up the ghost but we are so bloodyminded we just kept replanting until we got something. Despite the blight we even got a few lb of tomatoes.
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It was terrible, in fact so bad I decided to get away from it all and went on holiday with daughter and Grand daughter. Had nothing at all to shout home about, potatoes did produce but not as you would expect them to, but had some good runner beans. Praying we all have better luck this year, but not holding my breathe. Keep plodding on regardless. Just love the outdoors, that when the weather permitting. Getting things going in my small electric propagator and things shooting up already.Just need some sunshine now.Happy planting everyone.