[rowlandwells]

as we all know allotments have been around at least before my time and of cause many changes are taking place from the no dig to the raised bed methods but we all strive to end up with the same results "hopefully" to achieve something we have grown from our own fair hands


so how do you as presumably long time gardeners think times and methods of gardening have changed in your time on the allotments do you think the modern would be gardener could show us oldies a thing or to

lets take step back and look when we where first introduced to Dads allotments helping dad out on nights when we should have been out with the lads or on a Saturday  morning well there where jobs  to be done and there wasn't  no I can't come with you dad  you went down the allotments like it or not


but for most the tradition of allotments carried on taking over your dads plot or getting your own  plot being given a second hand spade and fork and borrowing some of your dads tools and you where told bring them back as you found them  cleaned and god forbid if you brought it back broken  you would never hear the last of it all the other allotment boys would know you broke one of your dads garden tools and the cost to replace or repair


so after all that good fresh veg was put on the table and you lived well of the allotments so have things changed that much today we still grow on the allotments to put good food on the table perhaps not quite as your dad did because we tend to spend time down the allotments more for pleasure these days and if the potato crop fails or the carrot fly gets in first then we have to bite the bullet and buy it
same goes for soft fruit its nice to pick your own strawberries  and raspberries if they don't produce its not the end of the world is it

so any comments on this topic most welcome 

[mumofstig]

My Dad didn't have an allotment, but did grow as much as he could in the small back garden, always grew our runner beans and a few peas. Used to buy the runner bean plants, bare rooted and wrapped in newspaper,  from a market stall on a certain Saturday each year without fail
As soon as I got married and had my own garden I had a tiny greenhouse and added tomatoes to the growing list. Most of how I grow is down to books, TV gardeners down the years and trial and error on my first plot in the 80s. Of course nowadays we have forums like these to answer our questions 

Nowadays most people grow veg in narrow beds, it makes for easier cultivation - but I think it's expensive to buy wooden edges for them and question if it is necessary  The plots that are still cultivated in rows, here, always look immaculate but I think that's down to those particular gardeners, rather than the method being better.

I'm glad as a whole people are moving toward only using natural fertilisers and away from pesticides and those things that damage the environment, when I think of all the things that we used to use (and farmers sometimes still do  ) without any thought for what was happening.

[Veg Plot 1B]

Was at a meeting the other night when other plot holders were discussing soil ph, adding lime, growing green manures.

Me being new kid on the plot "No dig" so ways of compost making & how quickly I can do it.

[mrs bouquet]

I seem to remember Bob Flowerdew (him with the very long pigtail hair) on Gardeners World, talking about having a wee and diluting it and putting it over his compost heap.  Did he really say that and did he really do it and if so why ?.    He did not  do it  when he was being filmed    Mrs Bouquet

[mumofstig]

Diluted Urine is a good Nitrogen rich fertiliser or compost activator Mrs B, plus it is free   

As is 'night soil' if composted correctly, but that's much more difficult to manage with such small gardens and plots nowadays, but was always used as fertiliser in the past.

[sunshineband]

My Dad also grew veggies and fruit in the garden, and also took over half of the elderly lady next door's garden too, in return for her having some of the crops. He built a potting shed with a huge window to use for seedlings etc and graduated to a greenhouse eventually. I learned so much from him, including the tenet that you shouldn't harm the environment in the way you garden... none of those nicotine or DDT sprays for him. Compost was something to be cherished, and crop rotation a matter of common sense in his book
Gathering manure from the local rag and bone man's horse when he brought the cart round once a week, was the low point for me though! It went straight in the compost bin luckily, or Mum would have had a fit if Dad had developed  a manure pile in the garden

He would love our plots we have now, and often I can hear his voice in my ear when I am adding stuff to the compost bins... "Are you sure that's wet enough? Nothing' much 'll happen if it's too dry remember. Get out the water can"  and "Never let weeds see a Sunday" was another one of his mutterings , together with loudly singing "Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam" alternated with "If I was a Rich Man" hopping about like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. Funnily enough these are not traits I have continued with  ,  although feeding baby robins with meal worms certianly has!

[Plot 1 Problems]

While I have very dim and distant memories of being 4 years old picking runner beans at my grandad's allotment, my veg-growing activity is fairly new. The wife thought a nice little half plot would be good for us, but she didn't account for my full-bore obsession mode! A full plot was duly acquired and after 4 solid nights of 4am bedtimes due to intense researching I was fully primed to allotment
Never looked back.

[Growster...]

Interesting posts here!

If you go online to https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/ , and your area is possibly included, you can easily see every garden has neat rows of vegetables and fruit.

Like a lot of places, our village has several big houses, some with walled gardens, and they are just full to the brim with well-organised rows of just about everything. There's one place - now a private school, where they even had a peach house as well as a huge grapevine in enormous greenhouses!

Of course, gardeners back then were informed, knowledgeable, experienced and good at their job - especially if they were lucky enough to be employed on an estate, as the gentleman who lived in our house was! He made a good living out of it, such that he became a seedsman as well as being the village clerk, and a church warden!

When we started on our first allotment in 1984, the advice varied from "That's not the way to do it" to "Have some spare beans", so we've always done the latter, and luckily the negative groaners have gone.

This website is probably the best for any advice and help, and also is a 'must' for chat, company, laughter and good advice.

And you can log on when it's cold and raining - as well as dark!

[Mr Dog]

Oh yes I save all my wee for composting.

Heard from one source female is not good when I mentioned it at a compost lecture it was suggest them meat it was harder to collect.

I believe female wee is not recommended as it can often (more so than the case with male wee) contain unnatural levels of hormones. The same reason is also suggested for why the males of some aquatic species are becoming less fertile.