Allotments 4 All

Hi,
I have just got my first allotment and have never grown veg before, so please bearwith me ;D

If I want carrots (or any veg) throughout the year, what do I do? I am not sure whether to

1. Plant seeds every few weeks to get a constant supply ready at different times

2. Plant some early and late varieties and when the first are picked, plant some more

3. Plant them altogether and store them somehow

4. Something else

I am just starting to browse the catalogues so could really do with some advice!

thanks

Emma

Gosh they make me think! 

Emma, I think you have to do a combination of all those for each vegetable that you want.  You might use some early and late variates of carrots and store some of them.  With lettuce you will have to do successional sowings and have a winter variety.  With most roots you will grow a crop and pick during the year and then store the remainder.

So it all depends on what vegetable you want and what capacity you have to grow on and available storage space.

Most of this is based on trial and error as conditions for you may not be right to grow everything or store very much.

Others will be able to give you their ideas, but i just grow the veges i can and store onions, shallots and garlic.

Hope that helps, what ever you do enjoy your gardening.

regards  Bill ;)

Think it is difficult to have enough veg for all year round but....it is possible to have something. I have yet to grow a good carrot that would keep. But I do keep trying, I had some this year but not near the amount that I thought I would. You will read and learn by experience what works for you. But nothing will grow unless you try putting the seed in the ground first!!!!!!!!!!!! Good luck and enjoy you are on an adventure that is quite magical some days and just enjoyable for the other days but entertaining whenever.

Definately sow small pinches of things like lettuce ever 3 or 4 weeks.  You can continue this throughout the year if you get a hardy leaf, can provide protection with fleece or are able to grow some under cover.  Parsnips and big roots, like spuds, swedes and turnips I sow/plant in one go and start to use them as I need them.  Nothing wrong with baby parsnips and turnips, and nothing wrong with monsters to dig on Christmas day for lunch!  Plus, they store okay.  I plan to start some courgettes very early this year, and also very late to try and prevent the 30 a day glut I had for a while last year!!  There are early, maincrop and lates for most things, peas....carrots....leeks....salads....etc, so it is all in the planning.   ;D

It's really worth taking your time, reading up a bit (BBC gardening/ HDRA/ Garden Action are all helpful websites), consulting the catalogues and asking other folk at your allotment. Also just looking at other people's plots to see what they are planting.

The ones that need sowing at intervals are the ones you can't store or freeze or cook and freeze. e.g.You can make a glut of lettuce into lettuce soup and freeze it but it takes up a lot of space and lb per £ IMHO isn't really worth it.
Like EJ we had a glut of courgettes last summer to the point where I hear everyone saying "not ratatouille again!! ::)" so like her I'll plant fewer at intervals.

First decide what you like, then bone up on crop rotation - I do Pots Legs Roots Bras (to my husband's great amusement) but other people have different rotations. Work out what you have space for and go for it. Some will be great some will disappoint but that's all part of the fun.

Hi Emma, Everything everyone else already said really, ...

and with some effort an allotment will provide you with an amazing supply and range of good food all year round.

This week I will be eating pumpkin, butternut squash, carrots, parsnips, onions, leeks, spuds, and cabbage fresh from the plot or from storage. Broad beans, runner beans, peas and blackberries from the freezer and my home made jams. My tomatoes, picked green and ripened slowly, lasted into december.

During the spring and summer I produced all these things and more to eat fresh and a glut of salad along with a wide variety of fruit and cut flowers .. and I`m only a novice.

I really need a second freezer and some place to put it and I`m already saving jars for next years jams and pickles.

Oh, you might want to plant fruit trees and bushes and rhubarb crowns as soon as you can, if you can, so you start harvesting from them when they are mature as soon as possible.

Col

Hi Columbus,

Can I recommend this little book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1903998255/qid%3D1136394227/202-8741717-1642220

Title says it all.

I use a combination of approaches ...

Where talking veg that can only be eaten fresh, eg lettuce, then successional sowing appears to be the method.

For other veg then I harvest as I need for the table, and crop for storing as practical. Specifically talking carrots, the harvest will start with the thinnings, a seasonal delight of tiny carrots, perhaps only pencil thickness, but exquisite in flavour and texture, eaten raw with mayonaise as an appetiser. Thereafter, the carrots will be lifted as desired for the table. Come the autumn, the crop will be lifted in stages and frozen, thereby supplying carrots for as long as the size of the crop lasts (in my case all through the year !).

Other crops, eg onions, will keep in dry storage but will deteriorate late in the season, so that full year round availability is not possible.

So you achieve whatever you can, without making a rod for your own back.

Good luck

Hi Emma

Lots of good comments- like one of the earlier responses I have yet to grow a decent carrot.  Old growers in our village in Northumberland say you can't here.  My holy grail is to keep salads going (and growing) through the winter and success varies from year to year.  I did harvest some lettuce from my unheated greenhouse yesterday (a special winter variety) which I planted out in late autumn.  Under cloches I have some lambs lettuce, rocket and mustard greens and there is some red italian chicory coming just outside.

Good luck and have fun with the planning.

In the SE sow onions, shallots, carrots, parsnips end of Feb/begining March.

Potatoes earlies 2nd week March, lates 3rd week April.

Peas leeks and beetroot in March outdoors.Leeks thin out in July and plant in hole using dibber.Indoors Peppers- plant out Beg. of June.

April sow indoors and plant out after last frost sweetcorn, tomatoes, courgette, purple sprouting and all brassicas.

Late April indoors, french beans, runner beans.Plant out after last frost.

Fruit- All permanent crops, rhubarb, redcurrent, blackcurrent, gooseberry and strawberry.

Salad crops- Start lettuce off indoors, sow frequently from end of Jan, early crops plant out under fleece or small poly tunnel. Raddish- sow early march, small amounts regularly. Sring onion late Feb /early March- sow at regular intervals.

Spend the time from now on preparing the ground- digging removing weeds/ manuring.

Hpoe this is useful and good luck

Hi Emma, I swear by this book to blow the boundaries:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1890132276/qid=1136401163/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/202-0411622-2192660
- even without a polytunnel (cold frames/cloches at a pinch)
Good luck, what great questions!  :D

Thanks for the book choices,  :D

There are lots of new ideas and ways to do things there.

I ought to make more of what one book calls "protected planting", My potting shed is a refuge for mice and I`m afraid to plant stuff because they`ll eat it, and my cold frame is stuffed full of sacks of horse muck that I`m keeping as warm as possible. My fruit cage has a micro-climate all of its own so I guess that falls into this catagory.
This is an area thats worth more thought.

I think that pickles and preserves of all kinds are a good way to use summer gluts but last year several pounds of runner bean chutney went off in a few weeks. My cheap jars weren`t up to the job. Again I have to be more organised about having the resources to do the job.

This is begining to look like a list of new year resolutions.....get organised, plan ahead...

Col

My limited knowledge is that the earliest leeks are ready about September. The latest last in the ground to perhaps the end of April. Is this what you are planning Dominique, or have you found some summer cropping varieties, as I always end up running out ...

Thanks Dominique, I have taken down their names and hope to see them on my plot this year! Lovely to have leeks all the year mmmmm. :P

hi emma,
i'm quite new to this too and i would suggest that we try to enlarge our cooking and pickling skills to tide us over  ;D
i'm finding it hard to make the dates for planting and harvesting coincide with my rotation plan!
it's all seeming a bit of a mathmatical nightmare at the moment   ???
expect it will seem clearer when i'm out there than it does on computer. :-\
i had great success freezing last year and this year i plan to slice and freeze onions, garlic etc ready for cooking to  make them last all year.
good luck with it all,
Tara xx

Natan is a great leek - very hardy and a lovely, slightly metallic, colour...

To try and bridge the hungry gap: I've been 'holding' a number of tough plants - chicories, land cress, endive, winter lettuce, cabbages, coriander etc. at the seedling stage in modules and the like. Autumn/early Winter keeps them dormant but ready for a flying start come Spring...

...that's my theory anyway!

My grandmother had a cold store for winter veg. with wooden racks and boxes, and it was a great treat to go to the cold store and pick potatoes, parsnips, cabbage, squash, apples and so on off the shelves. There seem to be lots of books on Amazon about building your own, so I might try a small one to start with in my own cellar. It would save a fortune on freezing. :)