What Now for my Allotment

I would probably leave the strawberrys. You should get runners next year from the plants you have which you can use to fill in the big gaps. Runners are sideshoots from the main plant that can take root and become another strawberry plant.

Sept/Oct is a good time to plant some overwintering green manures. I don't know how much you know about them but they are basically a cover crop to stop nutrients leeching from the soil over winter and help keep weeds down. I'm doing a mix of Hungarian grazing rye and Winter tares (approx 50:50). If you do sow some of these make sure to give the ground a good weed first.
The rye is good for the above mentioned things and also has quite an extensive root system so digs the soil for you overwinter!! The winter tares are a legume(bare in mind crop rotation) so along with the above mentioned stuff they also fix nitrogen from the air. You dig these back into the ground in early spring (march/april) before they set seed and this gives a great supply of nitrogen.

Note: When you dig them in they release a chemical that inhibits seed germination for a few weeks. seedlings/transplants should be fine though.

garlic and onion are both from the same family (alium) so ye they can be put in the same bed. Onions and shallots from sets are usually planted september or october so anytime in next couple of months. Garlic I would do a little later like october-december.

Thanks for the advice to both of you. I think what I might do is weed the strawberry bed and leave the strawberries there.  They actually produced the runners you mentioned a few months ago - not really checked recently so not sure if they are dead.  Given that I have left them will they just root in where they are and die back, and can they be dug up and replanted in the spaces between original strawberry plants?

For the potato bed I think I will weed it and plant the green manures you suggest.  Do I do half the plot with one manure and the other half with the other, or can it all be mixed together?  And do both types you mention simply get dug in to the soil next year?

I will peel back a bit of the plastic weed and dig over a bit, and plant some onions and garlic.

As for fruit, we inherited redcurrent and blackcurrent bushes.  Around March time I pruned them down by about a third - I had no idea what I was doing and the guidance I read online about pruning just confused me about new and old branches etc.  Anyway, I trimmed away and somehow it all worked out fine and we had an abundance of fruit.

Also inherited a row of raspberry canes - I had no idea what to do with them - they all looked dead - brown wood.  Anyway, trimmed them down a bit and somehow they produced loads of fruit.  When I read about summer raspberries I was once again confused about old and new canes - mine all looked old but they still worked really well!

Have had loads of rhubarb growing in one corner, which we also inherited - it just appeared!  The leaves were getting out of control about two months ago and cos it had been growing for a few months I ripped it all up, thinking it was coming to an end.  Surprisingly I have had huge amounts of rhubarb regrow!

In summer time I did buy some trees - a pear, a braeburn apple and a plum tree.  They were about 4 or 5 foot I think, no fruit off them yet.  Two of them I think I planted too close - about 1.5m only perhaps, but hopefully they will still be ok.  I would like to get a cherry tree, but have never seen semi-drawf ones in the shops - are they available.  Also considered a nectarine.

Unfortunately progress on my allotment has been a little slow for the first year.   It is quite over grown, but hopefully once the weeds start dying I can try build a few more beds and prepare for next year.  I have tried to cover most of it with plastic which has controlled the weeds to an extent, though I can tell the weeds have still grown a bit below the mulch. 

We did manage to grow potatoes in one bed and strawberries in another.  The plants are now dead and all but a few potatoes harvested.

Any suggestions on what I can do over the next few months whilst I wait for the weeds to die.   What can I plant in the bed where the potatoes grow?  I heard garlic and onions can be done at this time.  Would I plant them both in the same bed?  Or is it worth digging over a small patch of weed covered ground and getting something planted in there?  What else can be planted with onions or garlic?

I guess I should leave the bed with the strawberry plants as they will grow again next year - or can I plant in between them - they were quite spaced out; only 6 plants for standard sized bed made from decking.

Any suggestions for starting veg off from seed?

Thanks in advance!

I'm sorry, you sound like a no-sweat gardener, there is no such garden is the only reason why I'm pointing this out.

"Any suggestions on what I can do over the next few months whilst I wait for the weeds to die. "

Dig. Whilst you are are waiting for the weeds to die, they shall grow.

Quote from: GardenShed on September 09, 2013, 20:40

Unfortunately progress on my allotment has been a little slow for the first year.   It is quite over grown, but hopefully once the weeds start dying I can try build a few more beds and prepare for next year.  I have tried to cover most of it with plastic which has controlled the weeds to an extent, though I can tell the weeds have still grown a bit below the mulch. 

We did manage to grow potatoes in one bed and strawberries in another.  The plants are now dead and all but a few potatoes harvested.

Any suggestions on what I can do over the next few months whilst I wait for the weeds to die.   What can I plant in the bed where the potatoes grow?  I heard garlic and onions can be done at this time.  Would I plant them both in the same bed?  Or is it worth digging over a small patch of weed covered ground and getting something planted in there?  What else can be planted with onions or garlic?

I guess I should leave the bed with the strawberry plants as they will grow again next year - or can I plant in between them - they were quite spaced out; only 6 plants for standard sized bed made from decking.

Any suggestions for starting veg off from seed?

Thanks in advance!

I'm sorry, you sound like a no-sweat gardener, there is no such garden is the only reason why I'm pointing this out.

"Any suggestions on what I can do over the next few months whilst I wait for the weeds to die. "

Dig. Whilst you are are waiting for the weeds to die, they shall grow.

Not at all - I don't mind digging - did plenty of it earlier in the year.  I was just asking what I could grow over winter and meant that I will start building beds and preparing for next year when the weeds have died down a bit.  When I took over the plot around the beginning of the year, the weeds had certainly died back quite a bit - nothing like what they are now.  Plus I have quite a lot of black plastic pinned down.  But for the record, I have no problem with digging!

Gardenshed, I suspect you are teasing us. 

Do you mean about the tomatoes?  If so, no I'm not, I think the great weather helped and I guess sometimes nature takes care of itself, either way the tomatoes were really successful and therefore, a nice surprise given we did hardly anything to look after them.