Page 22 - ALG Issue 2 2025

ON THE
KINGS PLOT
By Andrew Tokely, Horticultural Director for Kings Seeds
If possible, I try to take a week’s holiday
in November and use this time to dig
my allotment, weather permitting. Each
day I try to dig for 3-4 hours, which is
usually enough time to dig an area of
approximately 5m x 6m square. Doing
this each day of the week means that by
the end of the week, I have usually dug
the majority of the spare ground that is
available and, luckily, this was the case this
year. The weather was dry overhead, and
the soil had sufficient moisture. It was cold
and frosty often first thing but as soon as
that lifted the ground turned over lovely.
Knowing how to dig properly is a skill
that I was lucky enough to learn from my
father. My method is easy to follow; before
I start digging, I put down a string line to
divide the plot in two or three sections; I
then dig out a trench first, putting that soil
in two barrows. Then I chip the already
spread mushroom compost and any annual
weeds into the bottom of the trench and
gradually work backwards turning the soil
over into the trench, followed by chipping
more compost and weeds into the next
trench and so on. The last trench is then
filled with the soil in the barrows taken
from the first trench. Then the dug area
is edged up from the path and the grass
edges neatly clipped, before moving onto
the next piece of ground.
Seeing a neatly dug piece of ground I
always find very satisfying, knowing the
winter rains and frost will help break down
the soil, all helping to make it much easier
to have a workable soil and a clean start in
the spring.
From late November through to January,
it was very wet and cold so no further
digging could have been done. Come
February we had one dry weekend,
although the days were quite cold, and
I managed to dig all the remaining areas
where the last of the autumn brassicas,
parsnips and carrots had been, which was
very pleasing as these pieces of soil will still
have time to absorb any further wet spells
and should have enough frosty days to help
break this soil down also.
The only area not dug is where my
Purple Sprouting Broccoli sits, and this year
was ready to start harvesting in February
and hopefully continue cropping into April
or May.
Many of the fair-weather plotholders
on my site never start digging till March,
which I think often makes soil preparation
more difficult. The March weather may be
dry but often has drying winds which can
quickly dry out the freshly dug soil, often
making the clay soil at our site set the clods
of earth hard and difficult to break down
ready for spring sowings. Whereas autumn
and winter dug soil will easily crumble
down to a lovely fine structure in no time
at all and still have plenty of moisture stored
below, ready for the developing seeds and
plants later this spring.
Late December signalled turning on
the heated propagator and sowing some
Globo exhibition onions on Boxing Day;
these soon came through nicely and have
been pricked out into modular trays. A
good friend of mine raised some Leek Pips
(rooted mini leeks that have sprouted from
"I don't sow anything outside in the plot until
late March or early April unless we get a very
mild spell"
22 | Issue 2 2025 | Allotment and Leisure Gardener