Allotment Heaven: What’s it all about?

Having mooched around for a while looking at various spare plots, here’s a photo of the allotment I settled on in January 2006 (click to enlarge). Certainly didn’t pick it for tidiness. Some time since it was last tilled; it was rough pasture.

Like many allotment sites, the plots at the Hill Rise site had fallen into disuse through the 1980s and 1990s and renewed interest was just building up. I picked my site because it had enthusiastic occupants surrounding it.

Within a month I was off and running and heading confidently for spring, raised beds installed. That really helped. I focused on digging one bed at a time.

Later took on an additional plot on the back of my first, ditched the raised beds, built a shed, built a chicken run and coop and acquired some chickens and a mad cockerel, put up a greenhouse and a tree house for the grandchildren, put up a polytunnel and dug a pond. See progress photos at the foot of this page.

Next reduced back down to one plot, before finally giving up on Hill Rise Allotments and the heavy clay soil and decamping to the bowls club (see Bowling for Gold for the ups and downs of my latest passion) and a plot there (oops... make that two plots!) with beautiful alluvial soil.

About the same time I started allotment gardening, also got interested in blogging. Seemed appropriate to record progress on my plot using a blog. It developed to be this web site, through which like minded people can access guides and read what I've learned from hard experience. And it started a passion for blogging. Particularly in winter months, my blogs give me a chance to write about general topics of interest and personal opinion. You can access some of my other web sites by clicking a link under 'Further reading' on the right.

Every spring I sally forth with absolute confidence that everything planted will grow into a specimen to be admired. Every autumn I used to wonder what went wrong. Over the years the mistakes have reduced as I've learned what works. Hope my experiences at least make you smile, and hopefully help you along the way to your own successes by not repeating the same mistakes I make. At least it (mostly) keeps me out of trouble.