Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Chatting => Design and Construction => Topic started by: purplebat on February 04, 2007, 08:38

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: purplebat on February 04, 2007, 08:38

hi there, I really am new to all of this, apart from growing a few veggies in the garden. we acquired our allotment in October, and have now got it cleared. We've got our shed (if you can call it that), but myself and my hubby are having a bit of a dispute, about whether to plant in rows or blocks, I think rows are easie to manage whereas he thinks that because other allotment holders where we are seem to use blocks, they must be better for some reason, is it purely aesthetic, or is there a reasion for this?  :?

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: shaun on February 04, 2007, 08:55

hi there purplebat
i prefer rows as a I can run the rotavator between them to weed and just do around the plants by hand for this each row is 600mm apart
and it depends on what your growing realy sweetcorn needs to be planted in a block say 200mm apart in a grid fashion so they pollinate each other,and brassicas are easy to cover with netting if they are planted in a block.unless you are talking about raised beds then thats another story
hope this helps

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: muntjac on February 04, 2007, 11:37

rows , rows and more rows  :wink:
http://www.chat.allotment-garden.org/viewtopic.php?t=1690&highlight=plot

show him the pictures on the first page ,, justa  couple rows left .but its usually full of rows ,like this
http://www.chat.allotment-garden.org/viewtopic.php?t=2099&highlight=tying+peas
, and hey there's no point in row.ing over rows

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: purplebat on February 04, 2007, 11:44

thanks for that, we are growing sweetcorn so I'll bear that in mind. i think I'm going to find this site a lot of help, and boy, am i going to need it!!! :D

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: GrannieAnnie on February 04, 2007, 12:14

Don't worry about it purplebat, we were all new and sadly ignorant at one stage!!!!

Most of us have a stupid sense of humour, so you'll have to bear with us, but we never take the mick seriously.  All questions answered to our best knowledge!!!!!

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: purplebat on February 04, 2007, 14:12

that's cool, cos so have i I can handle having the mick taken I usually do it to myself first, cheers!!! :lol:

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: Aunt Sally on February 04, 2007, 16:36

I think the only thing you need to plant in a block is sweetcorn purplebat  :!:

It is a grass a and is pollinated by the wind.  A block means that which ever way the wing blows the likelyhood of pollent blowing onto another sweetcorn plant is greater  8)

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: Axe Victim on February 04, 2007, 18:24

I think we may be missing the 'aesthetic' element here....I know that 'allotmenting' was based upon maximising the productivity per sq foot (during the war?)...but I was entranced as a child, by the higgelty piggelty nature of allotments...my allotment is a higgelty piggelty collection of odd paths, raised beds of different sizes...cold frames made of windows...home-made shed...etc.

Doing everything in cross-plot rows just doesn't do it for me, however 'easy' it makes the weeding....weeding's half the fun!

JMHO.... :lol:

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: beansticks on February 05, 2007, 07:56

Good morning PURPLEBAT,and welcome.

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: purplebat on February 05, 2007, 08:56

thanks for your replies, I feel a little clearer now (temporarily!) I just want to get planting now! not that I'm impatient or anything  :lol:

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: muntjac on February 05, 2007, 11:22

walk slowly into sowing nything at the mnute if the weather " persons " are correct we are going to get winter in the next  couple weeks . i had temps of minus 3 here last night and snow and ice forcast . i havent worried about sowing anything outdorrs yet and wont be for a while  :wink:

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: purplebat on February 05, 2007, 11:29

that's what i thought, it's meant to be about -5 tonight brrr! must remember to chop sopme kindling, sometimes i really envy people with central heating! but when the fire is lit i change my mind

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: muntjac on February 05, 2007, 11:32

cant beat a real fire , specially when the woods free hehe :wink:

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: purplebat on February 05, 2007, 12:00

definitely, now off to get some more, thank god for chainsaws!!! :lol:

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: Aidy on February 07, 2007, 19:34

Sorry Axe but have you had a bang to the head? "weeding is part of the fun" sorry but if nuclear grade weeding tools were available I would be first in the que, its a chore I and most people I talk to hate, I see em as the second worse nightmare in allotmenteering.

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: Bigbadfrankie on February 07, 2007, 21:15

hi Purrplebat i have been playing at this allotmenteering for over 5 years it takes ages to get proper results that's what makes it such fun. ( i like your portrait) its much harder than making a living from the land!!! good luck

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: Axe Victim on February 07, 2007, 22:30

Quote from: "Aidy"

Sorry Axe but have you had a bang to the head? "weeding is part of the fun" sorry but if nuclear grade weeding tools were available I would be first in the que, its a chore I and most people I talk to hate, I see em as the second worse nightmare in allotmenteering.

A weed is 'just a plant in the wrong place'....I'm growing all sorts of things that could be called weeds (like aliums) all over my lotty...if they're in the right place...they ain't a weed....we cultivate dandelions for the tortoises and the guinea pig!

 :twisted:  :D

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: purplebat on February 07, 2007, 23:08

I do agree that a weed is just a plant in the wrong place, so does that mean you never have to weed? in which case doesn't that kind of defeat the object of weeding being fun?  :?:

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: Aidy on February 08, 2007, 09:22

A weed! Imho is a plant that extracts vital nutrients from the ground, suffocates other plants around them. If I had criters as your good self Axe I would perhaps have a dedicated weed bed, I most certainly would not have them growing/competeing with my Veg, I would love to potter and sit in full sun enjoying the sight of my veges grow instead of spending hours culling all the weeds , so to me a weed is not a plant growing in the wrong place but a parasite on the allotment.

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: Zak the Rabbit on February 08, 2007, 09:27

weeds are actually the best plants around, from the point of view of their success - they grow healthily and reproduce without any help, they are very successfull, top of the old evolution pathway,

the big problem is that what we want to grow isnt as good at growing! if our crops grew as effectively as weeds do we wouldnt have to weed at all, they would just outcompete them!

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: Trillium on February 13, 2007, 04:47

I was a weed detester myself until I came across an article in Bob Flowerdew's  No Work Garden pg 47 where he creates a very fertile garden slurry from weeds, even bindweed (have more than enough to spare to anyone). Bet it also smells less wicked than comfrey slurry. This summer I'll be setting up a special fermentation bucket for the copious amounts of weeds saying goodbye to my gardens. My comfrey transplants are still sucking their thumbs so the weeds will have to do for this year.  :lol:

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: SkipRat on March 05, 2007, 20:17

Whats your first nightmare Aidy?

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: noshed on March 05, 2007, 22:50

That bloke that did "Lady in Red" probably

Title: rows or blocks
Post by: milkman on March 06, 2007, 09:00

I'm a block person meself, growing as I do on fixed beds.

Weeds are full of good stuff and make a valuable addition to the compost heap, before drowning if they're annual weeds, after drowning if they're perennial like creeping buttercups or bindweed - I never mind doing a spot of weeding with my handfork - it allows me to daydream.....