Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Welcome => New Across The Site => Topic started by: John on September 28, 2023, 00:02
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This has been a pretty poor season on the plot and I've been pretty down what with Covid and the blasted back. I've even thought about quitting but I've thought it through and found an answer. Brilliant potato harvest though, and it ain't over yet!
Time to Quit? Potato Harvest (https://www.allotment-garden.org/garden-diary/8326/time-to-quit/)
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This has been a pretty poor season on the plot and I've been pretty down what with Covid and the blasted back. I've even thought about quitting but I've thought it through and found an answer. Brilliant potato harvest though, and it ain't over yet!
Time to Quit? Potato Harvest (https://www.allotment-garden.org/garden-diary/8326/time-to-quit/)
When I first saw "Time to Quit?" my reaction was 'Oh NO!!' :( Reading on though, I agree raised beds could be the answer, especially the corrugated aluminium raised beds that bring the "soil" level close to waist high. That's just for crops that require a lot of stooping for just about all tasks (carrots, beets, cabbages, etc.). Tall crops probably would still be best in the ground or a short raised bed, I manage my weeds for tall crops with a good layer of grass clippings as a mulch.
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When I first saw "Time to Quit?" my reaction was 'Oh NO!!' :( Reading on though, I agree raised beds could be the answer, especially the corrugated aluminium raised beds that bring the "soil" level close to waist high.
Same here, I've decided on a couple of those for my mostly paved garden, to go in the 'awkward corners' that aren't quite square ::)
Before I moved away from my allotment, I found a large size, long-handle bulb planter was excellent for making the holes to drop container started plants into, in lower beds. It was good for things like sweetcorn, then weeding them with my stirrup hoe.
Or I planted through holes made in weed fabric, the holes made previously in the shed in an upright position :lol:
Good luck John, never give up - just adapt ;)
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I agree, John. We’ve had quite a few crops that have done very poorly… but the potatoes have excelled themselves :D
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I think it's the combination of a bad weather season and my problems together that made me wonder if it was worth carrying on. Talking with Cara helped clarify when she suggested I think what I'd advise someone else in my place to do.
Putting raised beds in will cost a bit but it's worth it,
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Sorry to hear that Covid continues to have such a long-lasting impact on you, as well as the back. Good luck with the new plans.
Like many others I've had an atrocious year for engagement with the plot - mental health challenges as well as physical.
I too have wondered whether to keep going but will persevere as I know I'd miss it, and the friends I have around me when on the plot.
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Definitely go for raised beds and don’t give up. I’m almost 80 & grow 90% of the veg we use, only buying swedes & parsnips. I have raised beds made from scaffold planks, four measuring 2 metres x 5 metres & one 2 metres x 2 metres plus two 6x8ft greenhouses. Each autumn I lightly dig or hoe the vacant beds, spread compost or well rotted manure then cover the beds with black plastic sheet. Come Spring the beds are exactly as they were left, warmed by the plastic, weed free and ready to plant. The rows between sweetcorn, peas & brassicas are covered with cardboard weighed down with grass mowings or wood chip. This saves watering, prevents weeds & breaks down over the winter. When the peas come out the winter greens go in. The only problem I have is bending to earth up potatoes, next year I shall try growing them under porous membrane.
Do keep going if you can and for as long as you can, even if it means scaling down somewhat. There are so many physical and mental benefits to being outside, working the soil and connecting with the natural world.
Ann
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I have an aunt and uncle that have raised a garden for as long as I can remember (up in Ohio). They are still raising vegetables, and they are well into their 90s. The activity has kept them 'young' despite their age!
Following up on the corrugated metal raised bed suggestion, and thinking about cost, here is a link to a video on how to make them at lower cost (the metal used in the video is corrugated steel): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GUEfP9K07o (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GUEfP9K07o)
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My sympathies go out for your back problems, John, and I've seen two really nasty effects of the covids on chums, but you two you seem to have the lot, sadly!
On the growing front, when we used to have our allotments in the eighties, and more recently, when we returned twenty years later, we'd grow potatoes as part of the crop rotation and noticed that many of the old boys often grew even more! But that was then, and now, without an allotment at all, and just the patch at home, something has to give!
With - say - Maris Piper in Tesco at £1.59 for 2.5 kilos, isn't it time to forgo the spuds? We'll spend about £35 a year on them, which is about the same as buying the seed, the fertilizer, and of course, then there's the back-breaking work like preparing the trenches, planting the things, earthing up, then digging up the crop! I tried a few earlies last year, and it really wasn't worth the effort...
Yep - you lose that fabulous smell and texture of a new first earlies, but hang on, if you ache so much getting them in, then out, then in my book, forget them!
Another take on a raised bed, is 'Desk-Top' gardening, where I have a raised platform, waist height, and can grow carrots, springs, lettuce, beetroot, rocket etc, all in long trays filled with either all-compost, or a mixture with a little garden soil. Everything is still in use after sowing early in the summer, except for the lettuce baby leaves which bolted, but there's spinach to go in somewhere yet!
And all this is after we've packed the GH with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, etc! Even the runner beans are easy to pick when they're five ft up the strings, but it's admittedly a bit of 'low' work at the start...
I still get a huge thrill from all this, it almost seems like cheating, but it works for us two!
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John i know how you feel, i have been very lucky so far not getting covid it can be so hard mentally and bodily.
On the quitting thought i have had 2 hip replacements, now i have just had my results from an MRI scan i am now told i have severe arthritis in my spin,i felt like i had been hit by a ten tonne truck it was not what i expected i am only 60 i know i may feel 90 some days but i shall keep going.
The spuds are now grown in big pots so no digging,as bending is not a good idea,tomatoes, cucumbers,chillies etc are grown in the greenhouse,i do still do a bean trench,i have cut back quite a bit but i will not give up.
What is a downer is i don't have anyone to talk to or see any one so i talk to my dog all the time and she agrees with everything i say :lol: never answers me back.
Exercise is done by the way of my bush bike, my labrador runs along side me, and she loves it.
John don't give up you are an inspiration to us all best wishes.
Lillileaf.
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Thanks Lillileaf
Wish my cats agreed with me!
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Thanks Lillileaf
Wish my cats agreed with me!
Well, to them, you're just 'Staff'', so they won't...!