The Allotted Month - January 2008

As with last month, not much gardening work has been done on the plot. Away from the plot the planting plan for this year has been drawn up. This is done during the winter every year so that there is a continuous record of what has been grown by variety, and exactly where and when it has been grown. I sometimes tell people that I don't have an allotment, it's really an organic food factory.

In the potato section the potatoes are planted so that they mature from one end to the other. This allows the Crimson Clover green manure to be sown as early as possible and give it a long growing season. It's also easier to harvest when one side of the row for lifting is completely open. In the brassica section there are alternate rows of early maturing crops (e.g. summer cabbage and calabrese) and later crops (e.g. sprouts and swedes). This allows easier access once the early crops have been removed.

In the onion, peas and carrots section the onions are planted at one end one time and the other end next time to give an eight year rotation to keep white rot under control. The three double rows of peas are grown far enough apart to give space for the triple rows of carrots and their mesh tunnels. In the final section I grow some early maturing first early potatoes, again at one end one time and the other the next time to help with eelworm control. Other crops in this section (leeks, courgettes and beetroot) are also planted so that the ground is cleared from one end to the other.

All my seeds, purchased through FEDAGA's seed scheme, have now arrived and I'm expecting the potatoes, onion sets and shallots later this month. These are also purchased through FEDAGA's trading schemes. Most of the seeds are sown individually in the greenhouse in trays of thimble sized cells and then potted on to Rootrainers. This gives earlier cropping, uses fewer seeds and also helps in club root control for the brassicas.

However, having done all the home based winter work, my main task in January has been repairing vandal damage. It really annoyed me that I spent so much time doing this when I should have been doing winter digging. Vandalism is a real problem on Edinburgh's allotments. It seems that the Police see it as a low level crime that is so difficult for them to solve that they are reluctant even to record it. I have had to ask to speak to a superior officer even to get a crime incident number. On one occasion on our site forty huts were broken into over one night. To me there were forty crimes, the Police gave all forty the same incident number - one crime. I think that if forty houses had been broken into there would have been forty crimes and forty incident numbers.

It's not a good idea to be away much in the summer growing season so we're now off for a week of winter sun. After that sees the start of inside planting and seed sowing. Celery is very slow to grow in the early stages so likes a lot of time and shallots and garlic also benefit from being started in Rootrainers for later planting out.

B. A. Plotter.