An End of the Year Ramble around our Plots

7 comments

An End of the Year Ramble around our plots

View along Gerry’s plot

Bed half dug

View along Plot 12A from bottom

On my own allotment, Plot 12A, I’ve made up raised beds only a few feet wide so I can get to the centre of the beds from the paths. I dug in lots of horse manure last year but we don’t have any this year. The soil on my allotment is very shallow in some places – not more than half a spade’s depth! Most of it is about a spit deep but it is underlain by sand & gravel.

It seems that a 100 years ago it was a gravel quarry but it became uneconomical to run & was filled in. As it was deemed unfit for housing & it was turned into a big allotment field.

Apparently the landfill came from the works of widening the A1, then they put a thin layer of topsoil over it before converting it for allotment use. At least that’s what a couple of the old guys down there have told me. I wonder if I should look it up in our local reference library. But it’s only a curiosity which will just be academic in a few year’s time as the cemetery alongside is expanding. A few years ago it swallowed up about 1/3 of the entire field & in about 10 years time they will need the half of the field where my plot is for expansion as well!

Just before Christmas last year (2011) they started to use it for the 1st graves. Now they have used up 3 or 4 rows the width of the old plots. Even at that rate they have space for a few more years yet! All the same it’s a bit disheartening knowing you only have your plot for 10 years! Not very conductive to long time planting of apple/pear/fruit trees or to plant up fruit bushes! I’d have liked to do that but once they (Town Council) told us their plans for the future I just forgot about the idea! I’ll content myself with the usual annual crops we plant.

Gerry has plenty of fruit bushes on his plot between 12 Gooseberry bushes, 2 Black Currants & a White Currant plus two big beds of Raspberry canes, one with 2 small Fig trees in it. He also has 3 Victoria Plum trees & a Black plum he thinks may be ‘Czar’. There are several yellow plum trees as well that produce delicious tasting orange/yellow plums & a Blackberry bush.

Fig trees under fleece in new Raspberry bed

Gooseberry bushes behind shed

Gooseberries – Close up

Black Currant bushes

Then there is the big old Apple tree under which we placed the shed a few years ago. It’s a cooker of unknown variety which produces more apples than we can get rid of! I bring some home & Gerry has given other plot holders permission to help themselves but more end up as birdfood than what we humans can consume!

Apple tree in flower with shed underneath

He also has a dessert apple, a dwarf, right in front of where we put the greenhouse. It has only produced a very few fruits up to now. Though every year since I’ve been there, 3 years, it’s doubled the production of the previous year! But, before you think that’s great, you should realize the 1st year it produced just 2 (TWO) small very red apples, the following year it made 4! A 100% increase on the year before! This year it made quite a few more – around 10 or so. A few were even a bit bigger than bite-size! Who knows what will happen in 2013??? Perhaps it will have enough to take to the Farmers’ Market in town! ;D

I’m going to put an end to this now. Happy New Gardening Year 2013! :)

• 7 Jan, 2013
• 6 likes

More blog posts by balcony