Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Welcome => Welcome to the Forums => Topic started by: AfricanAllotments on July 01, 2020, 10:33
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Good day all,
By way of introduction, my name is Stuart I am a British expatriate who has been living and working in Africa, specifically the Democratic Republic of Congo, for the past five years, and in finance for fifteen.
I have recently discovered that the stresses of my work-life abate when I engage with my garden, compost and crops. But I still have relatively little experience cultivating crops - I guess you could say I'm a 'budding' allotment grower, in need of a lot of knowledge and guidance from those more experienced than I, hence joining this forum.
I possess a little knowledge of how to grow a very limited range of crops as I used to help my mother maintain to her allotment in the UK, but this was over a decade ago and as the knowledge hasn't been exercised since, it has unfortunately faded.
In addition, my fiance and I would like to grow a larger range of edibles than my mother used to grow (fortunately we have access to an area of land that is somewhat larger than my mother's allotment) and as such I will be venturing into areas that I have absolutely no prior experience with. And so, before we undertake the work of excavating the ground of this land (which is very much clay and hard rock at present) and replacing with suitable soil, we are looking to amass a lot of information which can help us, such as:
- Minimum and maximum temperatures for growing specific crops (to ensure we attempt to only grow crops that stand a chance of flourishing)
- planting distances for each type of crop (to determine the area we need to excavate)
- planting depths and root depths for each type of crop (to determine the depth of land we need to excavate)
- typical yields (e.g. number of tomatoes per plant per season) and;
- growing periods (e.g. how long does it take a tomato to grow to ripeness), and we will use this information, in conjunction with typical yields and typical household consumption to determine the most efficient use of space)
Anyway, I think that pretty much covers our motivation for joining here. I will post the details in the relevant forum but just wanted to introduce myself to you all. I look forward to speaking with some of you in more detail.
Regards,
Stuart
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Welcome Stuart.
I would imagine that the climate in The Congo will hold its own challenges for the grower. Most of our knowledge base here is for the temperate climate of the UK... but we love a challenge :D
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Hello and welcome, quite the challenge you have there!
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Hallo and welcome, we are a friendly and chatty lot. :D Mrs Bouquet
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Welcome to the site and look forward to seeing/hearing how you get on :)