[Welsh Merf]

I'm looking for recommendations regarding what to plant after the spuds have been cleared from their plot. I've done the 1st earlies and most of the 2nd earlies, so I'm wondering what to plant in their place over winter.

Any ideas?

[mumofstig]

I did leeks after the first earlies, and spring cabbage and kale are ready and waiting to go in as I clear more seconds. Some perpetual spinach will also find a home somewhere 

[Grubbypaws]

Leeks after the first earlies and psb and kale after the second.

Claytonia, land cress and salad endive are still in the seed packets 

[sunshineband]

Leeks and perpetual spinach after the first earlies

A mix of oriental leaves - mizuna etc - land cress and kaibroc, plus some summer radishes follow my second earlies

[jmc1949]

I've put spring cabbage, kale and spinach in after my spuds.

[ryetek]

As others have commented we've got spring cabbage waiting to go in after the spuds. We grow "spring hero" spring cabbages and it's not too late to sow them yet let alone plant them out. There are probably also other varieties that can still be sown now also so it's not too late.

[Welsh Merf]

Thank you all for your suggestions! Leeks are looking like the favourites - we eat tonnes of them!

[solway cropper]

It's good to see that most folks are making good use of their plots with follow-on crops. One thing I hate to see is bare soil!!

[ecky]

How does this affect crop rotation if you already have a brassica bed. bit confused.

[solway cropper]

Don't get hung up on crop rotation, it's not critical as long as you don't keep growing the same stuff in the same bed year after year.

[mumofstig]

My second early potatoes are followed by spring brassicas in my 'kind of rotation' scheme.
This keeps the potatoes away from the lime I use on the brassicas for as long as possible on my small plot

Leeks follow the early potatoes, which themseves are followed with brassicas - so I'm using the leeks as a catch crop between the early potatoes and next year's spring-sown brassicas 
If that makes sense 

[Welsh Merf]

One of the chaps at the allotment told me that you can grow runner/french/broad beans in the same place every year. Any truth in this?

[mumofstig]

You can if you make a bean trench every year in that place - which is what most of the OBs do, then they have the same position - but they've changed the soil which they grow in 

[Anton]

Please elaborate on this trench because I tried the same thing last year, dug out a trench and filled it up with waste materials but when the time came to start work on it the waste material had shrunk to nothing so I was left with a deepish trench that I tried to level up with the neighbouring soil. Everything is fine so far. Nice runner beans, no infection  but what is the proper way to go about this, please?

Anton

[Anton]

And now that I think about it, a fellow garden has been  growing his "boterbonen", butter beans but runner beans, in the same place for the last four years. He has a long pole surmounted by the rim of a tyre, really high up, to which he attached cords.  Very successful but this year I see now flowers, beans or anything on his plants! He gardens in the morning and I in the evening so haven't had the time to ask him yet what went wrong.

Anton