The Allotment Book

Product Information

Gardener’s gloves will inevitably get muddy, dirty, and fall apart. That is the life of a gardener’s glove. The plot is cleared, and a mulch is applied directly on top. No digging is required. The bed has not been walked upon at any point during the growing season, so all that is required is the removal of any left over crops and weeding. I decided on a width of 120 centimetres for each no-dig bed, and I cut down long lengths of timber to make these. Having used these beds for the last two years, 120 centimeters is the widest I would want. Any wider than this, and I would need to step on the bed to reach the plants, and I would not be able to reach to weed the beds with a hand tool. I positioned these on the inside on the timber. Given the number of screws involved, using an electric screwdriver is well worth it. Are you looking for an Allotment book that will help you plan and learn ahead? Well the RHS Allotment Handbook and Planner is the book you need to help you do this. This allotment book has been approved by the RHS and it is written by their experts in the allotment and gardening world so you know all the information will be valid and correct. This allotment book will provide you with all the valuable month-by-month information you need to learn about planting schedules. This will help show you when is the most valid time to plant your crops down at the allotment to get the best fruit and vegetables.

Early spring often led to a plot looking overgrown, and throughout the year I found I was spending a lot of time cutting grass rather than growing. This book is beautifully laid out. It is simple to follow, clear and covers all the basics. It is a great companion to the first book as it covers the things the other book does not. It does a section on preserving and storing which is a great help. Also, applying a nutritious mulch to a whole plot takes a lot of effort. This is inefficient, as the mulch is applied everywhere, but not all parts of the plot are in use in any given year, and paths are still required between planted crops. Before covering with fabric, you may want to apply a mulch as a feed. In time, earth worms should help incorporate this into the soil without you needing to do any digging. Low Maintenance PathsWhen growing vegetables at home, finding space for a couple of compost bins, or a wormery, is a good way of recycling garden and kitchen waste to produce nutritious compost, that can be used around a garden to feed plants, or as growing media in plant pots. The bins should be positioned in a sheltered spot in your garden. I like to grow a lot of fruit at my allotment, and good bypass secateurs make a cleaner cut when pruning fruit stems, canes, and branches. Book:- RHS Step-by-Step Veg Patch: A Foolproof Guide to Every Stage of Growing Fruit and Veg About the Book:- Although called no-dig beds, there is some digging involved to create them. The first step is levelling the ground where you would like to put them. If your ground is already nice and level you can skip this step.

Low maintenance paths around no-dig beds save a lot of time. An alternative is grass paths, but this will give you a grass cutting job, and will likely lead to grass growing underneath your wood frame and growing inside your no-dig beds. My two tips are to remember to store a wheelbarrow upside down so that rainwater does not collect inside and rust the body. My second tip is to buy a puncture proof solid tyre. This will avoid needing to pump up the tyre (a flat tyre requires much more effort to push), and the frustration of needing to fix a puncture. I have tried subdividing my plot into squares divided by paths. I found this helpful in making it easier to plan where to grow crops, but what I found frustrating, and time consuming, is the extra grass cutting involved. I allowed at least 45 cm between the no-dig beds to allow enough space to easily walk around, lean over for weeding, and push a wheelbarrow if need be.Choose wood screws of a good length to penetrate deeply into the wood, but without going all the way through. Learning from books on allotment gardening can save you a lot of time, money and effort. They cut your learning curve considerably and can increase your chances of success. There are certain tasks that strong scissors are not strong enough for, like cutting the heads off lettuce or cabbage. My advice is to buy cheap and replace when needed. The picture of the garden glove shown here is a perfect example. The mud dried around the shape of my hand whilst wearing it, and I was able to take this picture, hands free, by simply placing the glove on the handle of my wheelbarrow.