I recapped our allotment in this post a couple weeks back and used the following illustration to show the layout of our first plot.

To show all the changes that we’ve made this year so far and our plans for all the plants, I created a new illustration for 2018. You can see it below.

So the first big changes up from last year, are the greenhouse and a second plot! Richard is so incredibly proud of the greenhouse. It took a while to build, but mostly because we were doing it in winter and there’s only so much time you want to spend freezing your butt off outside painting pallets. The frame was built out of pallets that Richard got from his work, and for so long it looked like we were building a pen for animals. Then he added some curved plastic pipe for the roof supports, and a shelf made of pallet scraps for starting seeds at the back, and everything got covered in plastic! The thing that took the longest was painting it all with the same stain as the shed (Tudor Black Oak) as pallets have so many nooks and crannies.

We’ve used it to start all our seeds this year, and made use of both the shelf as well as the bare ground to keep large bins full of seed trays. It was great to not have our windowsills full of little trays, like last year. Now that everything has been planted out, it’ll mostly be used to grow all our tomatoes, chilli peppers, and cucamelons.

Outside of the greenhouse, I opted to plant some lupins and salvia because I wanted to fill the space a bit and make it look prettier. On the other side, I moved some forget-me-nots that kept showing up on our plot to make it look nicer. Our allotment neighbour has them, and they keep seeding little plants all over our plot. Since I like free flowers I decided to simply move them, rather than get rid of them.

Besides the greenhouse, we have our shipping boxes-turned-raised beds from last year. We’ve moved them to a slightly different spot because of the greenhouse, but they’re in the same part of the plot. Instead of lettuce greens (which we always forgot to pick) we’re growing all of our herbs in two of the boxes while keeping the third for carrots and radishes like before. Hopefully, the nasturtiums, which are planted around the two herb boxes, will really fill out and spill into the middle… so pretty!

Over by the greenhouse is our shed! I gave it a couple of fresh coats of stain, as it was looking a bit worn after the winter. And of course, we gave it a much larger patio! If you follow along on Instagram, you will have seen the progress on stories. It’s soooo nice to have enough room now to sit with a few friends for a BBQ, which would have been too cramped before. And I can’t stop loving the herringbone brick! We scoured Gumtree to find free bricks in our area and then cleaned the old mortar off them to add to the existing patio._

I also frosted the window to make it look less cluttered (and prevent prying eyes – people’s sheds have been broken into before), and added a window box! Richard’s convinced it’s a bad idea, but it was in my allotment dream to have a pretty window box on the black shed. So far I’ve managed to keep it alive, despite not watering it every day. I specifically chose plants that do well without tons of water.

To further pretty up the space, we have our lavender around the shed (which is so much bigger this year – yay!) and a passion flower climbing up one side. I’m hoping that after this year the lavender will be big enough to sort of make a hedge all the way around the shed, but the back plants were smaller to start, and get less light. Without direct sunlight, they throw out really scraggly long flowers, but I’m hoping that after I prune them back a bit, they won’t flop over so much.

Beside the patio, we have Richard’s beloved sweet peas, in a newly built trellis. Last year we used bamboo, but the weight of the sweet peas caused it to sag too much. So we got some old scrap wood, stained it black (of course), and put green string between them. Hopefully, they’ll get even taller than last year with their added support. I had to redo the string part a couple of times because I first used wire (they didn’t like it), and then it was too far apart for them to grow properly. Hopefully next year we can get it sorted early enough to get super tall sweet peas. We basically want to make a privacy screen out of flowers to create a little private patio area.

The only other things on this side of the plot are our bean trellises. We’ve had some issue with the one corner, where plants seem to suddenly wither and die – we’re not sure if it’s ants creating nests in the roots, or some kind of fungus. Either way, we’ll try the beans somewhere else next year.

The finishing touch for this half of the plot would be to somehow get some solar string lights above the patio, but we’ll see. We don’t spend too much time at the allotment once the sun goes down, so it might be a bit of a waste… but so pretty!

Between the shed side of this plot and the other side, we have a plum tree and an apple tree. Pruned back a fair bit from last year, but still more to go. Hopefully next year they’ll be all nice and open. I also added some solar “light bulbs” amongst the trees which come on around dusk and make it look so pretty! They were only £1 from the pound shop, but work really well.

On to the other half of this plot! I told you these allotment posts would be long! 

The other half of our plot is broken into three sections. On the far side, we have our strawberry patch, rhubarb patch, and a few raspberries and blackberries. Everything there was the same last year, with the exception of the raspberries. They’re all transplants from little raspberries that decided to sprout in the grass between our trees. (Turns out raspberries are pretty much invasive on our plot – they keep popping up all over the place, so we just move them where we want.) Last year we had squash plants there, which we’ve moved to our second plot, as there wasn’t enough room. Our strawberries and rhubarb are much more established this year! We got a crazy amount of strawberries in June, and are hoping for another good crop later in the summer.

On the other side of this half of the plot, we have another bank of raspberry canes. These were moved from the other side of the plot to make way for the greenhouse, and they are much happier here! Hopefully, they’ll root in really well and produce lots next year. We also added a couple yellow and black (!) raspberry plants in amongst the old ones. Beside these is our new composter that Richard built from three pallets (and stained black – of course). Honestly, Richard is so in love with his composter, and I like that we can use it to store and sort bamboo and other wood posts.

In the middle of these sections, we have all our rows of plantings. We changed the way we oriented them from last year because the slope of the hill kept resulting in the lowest plants getting all the water. From the bottom, we have two rows of potatoes, two rows of beets (three kinds), parsnips, onions, and sugar snap peas! Right beside the peas, we have our second plum tree, which we surrounded with dahlia and teddy bear sunflowers. It’ll be like a little burst of pretty flowers in the middle of so many practical things. Well, that is if they start blooming anytime soon

Unfortunately, our first crop of beets and Swiss chard didn’t germinate, and the second got attacked by slugs. We’ve replanted them, and new shoots are emerging, but for now, this section looks all sad and bare. The parsnips did okay though, which was the complete opposite of last year. The snap peas have again been absolutely decimated by birds and slugs. We keep replanting them, but they just get gobbled up before they can get more than an inch or two tall. We maaaay need to buy larger plants soon.

The last thing on this plot, at the far end, are our last three trees – two apples and a cherry. The apples are doing okay – one got a bad aphid infestation and dropped a lot of apples, while the other is great. The cherry, however, keeps dropping all its fruit before it starts to ripen. There’s a pest problem there but I haven’t managed to figure it out yet.

And that’s it! Or, at least, that’s our old plot. I didn’t document the new one this past month simply because it was so overgrown in weeds (argh!) that it was hard to see the plants. As it was left for over a year to completely overgrown with grass and weeds, it’s been hard to tame. We’re almost there now, so I’ll try and document it for July. Already it’s proven quite the courgette/zucchini patch and the squash plants are right behind! Looks like we’re in for a bumper crop this year!

So what about you guys? Do you have a big vegetable garden this year?

So last year we took on our first plot at the allotment (community garden) nearby. It had been left to get a bit overgrown as the previous owner couldn’t take care of it anymore. I talked about what our dreams for the plot were in this first post, as well as what we had done so far in this one. However, that is where my posts stopped! I kept wanting to take photos and post updates but would think “I need to weed first” because I wanted super pretty ‘Instagram-worthy’ pictures. Well, that never seemed to happen, and then our tomatoes all got blighted and I just gave up. I just never thought it looked good enough to document.

Buuut… it’s hard to really show how far we’ve come without first posting some photos from last year. They’re mostly just iPhone photos that I took to send to Richard while he was away, so he could see the progress. I apologize for their lack of quality.

So first up, we need to just remember where we started…

That was how the plot looked when we first signed up for it. It had rows of raspberry canes covering one half of the plot, a few giant woody lavender, a couple of rose bushes, and some fruit trees. Other than that, it was all just grass and weeds – completely overgrown.

We pulled up all the old landscape fabric and rotated the two halves of the plot. Unfortunately, as we learned the hard way, certain weeds etc. just get worse if you rotovate. Richard had broken up and turned the soil on one half by himself, but then while he was doing the second half, the allotment site manager came over and offered to rotovate instead. Turns out they get broken up and churned into the soil – only to pop up later 100 times worse. You can see evidence of that in later photos…

Now, to make things less confusing let’s refer to some diagrams and images – shall we? Last year just after we cleared the site, we drew up some plans of what we wanted to do (this plan was in my post about what we had done so far).

And of course, our plans changed as we went, and by the end of the summer, the actual plot looked like this. Oh, and my diagrams got better

Now, our plot essentially has two sides, broken up by the trees and grass in the middle (as shown in the diagram above). Let’s start by talking about everything that we did on Side A.

the plastic shed base, laid on top of the white weed-covering fabric

So one of the first things that we managed to do was create the patio area and shed. We ended up getting our shed assembled, because Richard was away at the time, and I can’t build it by myself (hard to lift and screw things together, simultaneously). The company delivered it and put it together in about 20 minutes! All I had to do was clear the area, level the ground, and install a base. To that end, I put down one of those plastic shed bases. It was super easy to put together and came with landscape fabric to prevent weeds from growing underneath. We could have gone with a wood base or concrete, but the wood ones are super expensive, and the concrete wasn’t going to work on an allotment.

Once the shed was up, I painted it black with some Tudor Black Oak stain we bought from B&Q, just like my inspiration photos. It probably took about 4 coats to really cover, which took forever with the tiny brush I was using. I also covered the exposed black shed base with some light grey gravel.

Then, I cleared the ground and levelled it as best I could for the patio. I had been dreaming of having a herringbone brick patio since Richard first mentioned having an area for BBQs and tea breaks. Somewhere nice to sit and relax after we’ve been gardening. We changed the orientation of the shed and patio from our first plans but kept it in the same corner of our allotment.

We had been given some free bricks from Richard’s work, and I simply laid them on top of some landscape fabric and filled them around with packed earth to prevent them from shifting. Unfortunately, we never filled in the gaps with sand, which meant that it shifted around a fair bit when walked on. Something we remedied this spring, when we decided to increase the size of the patio!

On the shed side of the allotment (side A), we ended up planting beans, tomatoes, and herbs. Richard was given some shipping crates from his work (not the best wood, but hey – free!) that we turned into raised beds for nasturtiums, lettuce greens, and my cucamelons! I painted them with the black stain that I used on the shed and they looked really nice! Nothing that a little black stain can’t spruce up! I erected some bamboo in between two boxes and rigged up a trellis with some string for the cucamelons to grow up. My original plan was to make a living archway, but the bamboos just weren’t tall enough to walk under.

you can see the boxes in the right photo, along with by cucamelon trellis before it was tied together

bean trellis in the foreground, tomato plants behind, then boxes in the background

The third box we had was used for carrots, as it was the only one deep enough. We had read online that chives prevent carrot flies, so we planted some in each corner of the box, and it seemed to do the trick! None of our carrots suffered from pests all summer. Beside the grass and trees, along the boxes, we added a row of raspberry canes that we salvaged from the plot when we took it over. The only other things that we planted were some sweet peas and lavender around the shed.

Everything was doing really well until our tomatoes caught blight. Almost everyone in our allotment got it and we ended up losing all 12 plants. Juuuust as they all had tomatoes about to ripen We were both so depressed. We had all kinds of tomatoes too, from green zebra ones to giant beefsteaks.

all our lovely tomato plants just as they caught blight

On the other side of the allotment (side B), we planted rows of beets, swiss chard, peas, potatoes, zucchini, and oka. We also had a patch of strawberries, rhubarb, and Jerusalem artichokes, as well as some dahlia and sunflowers. This side of the allotment did really well! The rhubarb was constantly provided, as were the potatoes, zucchini, beets, peas, and Swiss chard. We forgot to harvest the oka and Jerusalem artichokes until it was too late, and the strawberries kept getting eaten by squirrels.

our rhubarb, strawberry patch and the rows of newly sprouted plants

our beets and Swiss chard just as they started coming up

this side of the plot once everything had come up!

The only other things on the plot were our fruit trees. The plums we missed, as we were away when they were ripe, but we got plenty of apples! However, our cherry tree kept dropping all the cherries before they ripened… so something is wrong there. Just not sure what.

And that’s it! That was our allotment last year, and boy has it changed! So far we’ve moved tons around, built a greenhouse, and got a second plot!  If you follow me on Instagram, and especially the stories, you’ll have seen more of this by now. I’m planning on documenting the allotment much more this summer, with a post every month on how things are going. We have big plans this year!

What about you? Any plans for growing your own fruits and vegetables this summer?

Well, it’s mostly before. To be exact, by the point I started taking pictures, we had already ripped out almost all of the weed-strewn landscape fabric barrier, old overgrown lavender, blackberry brambles, and 2-3 rows of raspberry bushes. So it doesn’t do justice to what our little plot was like when we took it over, but it’s sort of the clean slate we created.

Last weekend, Richard and I both had Saturday off, so we spent the morning on the allotment. First up, we went to our local garden center, Ruxley Manor, for some seeds, hand tools, and rhubarb plants. We had hoped to get our shed delivered this weekend, but it won’t come until mid-April. Instead, we decided to try and get the rest of the clearing and pruning done in preparation. As a lot of the plants are going around the shed, we decided to only buy the rhubarb that day. The little rhubarb patch is in the other half of the plot, so we don’t have to worry about moving anything.

apparently, this is two plum trees planted together – one purple, and the other green!

Our allotment plot was in rough shape when we got it. None of the trees had ever been properly pruned, nothing was cut back or well-trained, and most of the soil was covered with landscape fabric to prevent weeds (which just grew through it). It meant a few days of back-breaking work for Richard (I kept having to work weekends) and lots of pruning and tidying up for me. However, it already has three apple trees, 2.5 plum trees (one tree is apparently two growing together, different kinds), and enough raspberry plants to salvage a row.

our solitary row of raspberry canes – also, how immaculate is our neighbor’s plot?

But this last weekend, I decided to start documenting our progress! I’m not sure if this is interesting to anyone but me, but I want to be able to see how far we’ve come when it’s done. Side note – Richard has to go away for work for 6 weeks in May, and I asked him if he wanted me to send him weekly allotment update photos. He thinks he wants to be surprised by how much it has all grown when he gets back… which I used to love seeing after summer holidays when I was a kid.

this is our current plan for the allotment – although it changes every time we are down there (in fact, it has already changed from what is shown here!)

So first up, we have the front half of the allotment. We keep calling it the ‘raspberry section’, as it used to contain mostly rows of overgrown raspberries, but we need to come up with better names. Perhaps one half is Canada, and the other is Northern Ireland? That way I can say things like, “Let’s put the beans in the Northwest of Canada!”.

Here we are stalling the most due to the shed, as it’ll go in the bottom corner of the plot. Richard spent a day ripping up all the landscape fabric (rolled into piles) and random bricks. Now we just need to properly turn the soil and we can begin planting! Hopefully, we’ll plant beans, peas, carrots, cucamelons, chillis, tomatoes, herbs, and some flowers here. We’re going to try and plant some pretty/fragrant things around the shed as we’re building a mini patio out of reclaimed brick. A nice little place to sit and have a cup of tea while we’re at the allotment.

We’ve already changed our plans from what my plan shows above, as we’re now thinking about moving the carrots and lettuce greens to this section and putting them in raised beds. We may even include the cucamelons in with this plan, and create an archway between the two beds!

In between the two growing sections, we have two trees. One is our weird mixed plum tree-and-a-half, and the other is an apple tree. There were three rose bushes placed around these, but they were getting in the way in terms of picking and pruning, so they had to go. We are giving them to a friend of Richard’s, so at least they will be planted somewhere. Just not somewhere that involves me constantly getting pricked by thorns when trying to get at the fruit in the trees.

As I do like flowers, I am replacing the thorny roses with a bank of edible flowers. My goal is to cover the ground between the trees with flowers, that can then be added to salads. You can see my little tray of violas ready for planting, and there were already tons of primrose around. We’ll also plant marigolds, cornflower, and violets. I just need to get them sprouting first. Maybe in a year or two, we’ll have lots of pretty, yet edible, flowers?

The second half of the allotment is larger than the first. It’s where most of our rows of vegetables will go, along with a few randoms. As there was already a rhubarb plant here, we decided to keep it where it was and create a patch. We’re introducing a couple varieties that we bought, so we’ll hopefully get rhubarb at different times of the year.

There was also a thornless blackberry variety, to the right of where Richard is majestically posing. Again, we’re keeping it as is but will try to train it better. We’re creating a little brick border and will mulch on top of the existing landscape fabric, as it was too difficult to remove in this area, and will help with weeds. You won’t even notice it once we’re through with it.

And seeing as how there is a bit of room in this little section, we’re going to add a tayberry plant! I have never tried one before, but it seemed like a good fit besides the Blackberry, as they both need similar support and training. Oh, and there is another smaller plum tree in this section, but it doesn’t divide the space up like the other trees, as it’s on the edge of our plot.

apparently, this is a purple plum… which makes me a bit sad as yellow plums are my absolute favorite!

the little rhubarb plant we inherited

At the far end of our little plot are three trees – one cherry, and two apples flanking it. I’ve already pruned them back, so now we just have to devise a plan for protecting our cherries from birds! We’ve heard from our neighbors not to expect any cherries, as the birds get them all. Not this year birds! Although to be fair, I’m not sure what to do yet to prevent that.

As with the previous tree section, we’re going to plant a bunch of flowers under the trees. In this case, however, Richard wants to plant tons of spring bulbs! Not going to do much for us this year, but come next spring, there will be a huge boom in daffodils, crocus, and snowdrops under these trees!

And that’s that! It’s kind of a boring post, not going to lie, but I wanted to let you all see the blank slate we started with. That way, when I start posting amazing photos once it’s all established, you will be even more impressed! Now if you need me, you will find me sitting on the grass, trying to mentally encourage my plants to grow…

Allotment garden inspiration | Hello Victoria

allotment inspiration via

A few months ago, Richard and I became the proud owners of an allotment! We had been trying to grow some things at his brother’s place but found that we rarely had the time to make the drive out there in order to tend to it.

After talking to a neighbor in our little building, he mentioned that he was part of an allotment garden just a 10-minute walk down the road and that he thought there might be spots available! Turns out the space right beside his was available, and so we put in our request. Unfortunately, by the time we did so, it had been claimed by another person. However, we found out that three more plots were becoming available by the end of the year, and we could come to take a look if we wanted.

allotment inspiration via

In this instance, not getting the plot we asked for turned out to be a blessing in disguise! One of the three plots was even better than the first! Our new little garden has not just one, but four fruit trees already established! (It also has one tree that we have no idea what it is. It could be fruiting, or ornamental, but we won’t know until spring/summer.)

The trees do mean we have less space for growing things, but it’ll be amazing to have our own apples (two kinds), plums, and cherries! I am so excited about summer baking! In addition to the fruit trees, there are some raspberry bushes, lavender plants, and a little grapevine on the allotment. Most of it we’ll take out because it’s all overgrown and taking up space, but we’ll give them to other people in our garden who would like them.

Before we can get to planting, there are a few projects we need to complete, as well as a lot (I mean, a lot!) of soil prep. We’re going to build a wee little shed on one corner for tool and seed storage, with a little patio area beside it. Hopefully, we’ll divide and plant some of the lavender as a border along the one edge beside our shed. While we both like lavender (the smell when a breeze hits, not to mention baking opportunities!) the current placements and size don’t work.

black shed inspiration via

I’m looking to paint the shed dark grey or black, after being inspired by all the black in Manhattan Nest blogger Daniel Kanter’s backyard. It really makes the green of the plants pop! If we get it up in time, I’m hoping to grow some clematis on a trellis along the one side, and then install a window box of nasturtium under the little shed window. Add some mason bee houses (shaped like honeycomb) and voila! Perfect little shed!

herringbone brick inspiration via

For our little patio area, we are thinking of using reclaimed brick, possibly laid out in a herringbone pattern. Lots of houses in our neighborhoods keep redoing their brick driveways and walls, and we’re hoping to score some free brick! We could also use it to make some cute brick pathways between the crops…

the small brick path via

The allotment will take a lot of work before we get to the fun stuff. We have to completely rip out all the weeds and till the soil… not to mention prune all the trees (not sure anyone ever did), remove the plants we don’t want, divide and replant the lavender, etc. Only then can we really plant new things.

We have lots of seeds already and will be growing plenty of unusual vegetables. I am of the opinion that yellow carrots, striped beets, and black or green tomatoes taste better than their normal counterparts. Below are some of the seeds we are hoping to grow!

rainbow chard via // green zebra tomato via // watermelon radish via // rainbow carrots via // striped beets via // sour gherkins via

Richard has also started growing some chili seeds from Nepal in our flat, that he wants to try and transplant into the allotment. Apparently, these chilis are very spicy, but don’t upset your stomach! Cool huh? We’ll just have to see if they work.

I’ll share our progress once it’s no longer snowing outside (say what?!), and we can get started on preparing the soil and shed area. But for now, I’ll simply dream of sunny days spent on our little patch of paradise.