The main crops left at my allotment plot now are a few different varieties of Heirloom tomato, some Cayenne Peppers, sweet red peppers, a few Jalapeño, some Swede, Sweet corn and Jerusalem artichokes.
I’m also excited about being given around 12 kilos of red grapes from plot holders who have an excess, this will be turned into red wine and bottles of it given out to plot holders next year. This years growing has provided us with dozens of jars of jam, chutney, preserves and containers full of frozen produce that we simply wouldn’t have been able to afford if it wasn’t for us being fortunate enough to have an allotment plot.
One of the main tasks on my plot over the autumn and winter period is getting some fertility back into the soil and reducing the amount of dock leaves and field Horses tail. I’m using a thick cardboard cover over my beds with two inches of rotted manure on top of it, I’ve used this method in the past and it seems to work well enough to provide the soil with its nutrients whilst at the same time drastically reducing the number of weeds in the beds due to the thick cardboard covering. In the spring I will then add some of my own plot made compost to the beds before putting anything out to grow in them
In the morning I’m off to my plot to sow some more overwintering onion seeds, I cant afford to buy the usual sets that I’ve been using for the last decade, by using seeds instead of sets it will cost me around fifty pence to sow 200 onions.
Steve