Page 14 - Simply Vegetables Autumn 2024

Ron’s Allotment
My allotment is an interesting and fun place to be I continue growing crops that are appealing to all members of the family and are natural to our local conditions, and being resilient to changes in the weather.
An allotment has not always been
a family attraction it was a workplace
for some. Known by its novel standard size of 15 Poles [500 square yards] and surrounded by a strong hawthorn hedge. Originally intended to supplement a healthy diet, high in fruit and vegetables, to guard against illness. Following the RHS celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897.
WW1 made significant changes, including “Digging for Victory”! The aim was to supply food for the increased working population and allotments were intended to grow extra provisions of flowers, fruit, herbs and vegetables for the home when reasonably priced seasonal vegetables were becoming less available in the local nursery and markets.
I aim to copy the circumstances of that early era.
Flowers include, asters, carnations, daffodils, marigolds and sweet peas, are growing in beds at the side of the green house.
Fruit, mainly plums in the summer and cooking apples for the winter. Established raspberry canes, a strawberry bed and a wide variety of berries thrive in a fruit cage.
Herbs grow in boxes filled with a rich compost in full sunshine.
Greens, are mainly summer and winter cabbage, protected from the pigeons in a mesh tunnel.
High-quality vegetables, asparagus and rhubarb, occupy their own beds being special permanent areas.
Early potatoes, grown in ridged rows are harvested shortly after the first flowers
Ron Nuttall presenting cup to David Read
Rose Arch
appear, producing what my wife refers to as her favourite salad potatoes. Large in numbers, small of size and requiring no peeling!
Traditional, non-hybrid, vegetable seeds are preferred.
They extend the harvest period and
are better suited to the scheme because
of their high yielding potential and
natural resistance to disease and insects. Potatoes, onions, leeks, and turnips were all consistently improved to higher standards over many years of careful selection.
Preparing the seedbed. I no longer dig the plot. At the beginning of winter and the soil is weed free, this vegetable area
is marked-out with beds four feet wide. A one-foot (30cm) alley between them, gives access for summer weed control and ease of protection from a two-metre-wide mesh or plastic cover.
In each bed, rows are two feet (60cm) apart and set on a ridge as stagnant water is deadly to most young seedlings. Using my fork to loosen the soil, exposure is given to the weather and excess winter rainfall will drain away.
In the spring, as the garden begins to dry-out, the hoe and rake are used to prepare a loose and fine seedbed, encouraging root development.
The next discipline is to establish plants along the rows at the proper distance apart.
Allotment Flowers
This traditional pattern of growing original cultivars is an attempting to grow the best of everything and grow everything well.
Sow parsnips in a shallow drill, dropping seed in twos and threes at a distance of
6” (15cm) apart, touch over with a rake to make a neat finish. When the seedlings are visible, keep the weeds down and thin the crop to prevent overcrowding.
Plant ‘onions sets’ 4” (10cm) apart from mid-March onwards. Watering may be needed to start them.
Leeks, establish in well prepared ground in February, March and April, to ensure a succession. When they are 6”(15cm) high and as thick as a pencil, make a hole with a dibber. A crop of small leeks may be planted 6” (15cm) away from each other or wider for bigger leeks. Water them in.
Turnips are not a difficult crop to grow. To ensure a succession of tender young roots, plant as early as the last week of February in a sheltered border. They benefit
from judicious thinning at emergence
to anything from 4” to 10” inches (10 to 25cm) according to the cultivar grown. For smaller ones, 6” (15cm) apart is suitable and up to a foot (30cm) apart if you want larger ones to eat or make scarecrow heads! May sowings are affected by the hot summer sunshine so hold back until June and July which are good months for winter production. A heavy occasional watering will keep them growing healthily.
Happily, I continue growing heritage crops demonstrating how I have copied the conditions of that early era.
Benefitting from the extended the harvest period, high yielding potential, resilience to the changes in the weather and local growing conditions and maintaining a natural resistance to disease and insects.
Ron Nutall
14 Simply Vegetables
Bird Control