Disheartened with plot

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Hevski

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Disheartened with plot
« on: June 06, 2022, 16:45 »
I notice several people have used this topic title but most seem to be on new plots. I have had my plot for almost 12 years now but I must admit this year is really making me question whether it is all worth it. It started off with an allotment thief helping himself to the more expensive stuff all across the site - he has a definite taste for the good stuff particularly asparagus, purple-sprouting broccoli which he snaps off the stem and damages the plants and pea shoots. Doesn't touch the leeks or cauliflowers so it's not someone just trying to feed their family. I have just realised that the council have applied weedkiller all along the wire fence next to my plot. They have never done this before and I know it is because it is difficult to strim but they have killed my climbing roses, foxgloves, honesty, verbascum and small patch of wild flower meadow which I started in lock-down to cheer folk up and bring in the pollinators. This spring has also been so dry we are infested with blackly and greenfly including woolly aphids on the apple tree as well as tent moth (now that's a new one on me!)  We had 2 frosts right at the beginning of June that have taken out half of the tomatoes I put in last week. I am seriously questioning if it is all worth while, I am trying to adapt the way I do things at the allotment as I approach retirement. I love no-dig and I am a complete convert to this method as digging was the one thing I completely hated especially as I am getting older. Once I retire I won't have to spend a whole day of my precious weekend at the allotment but that seems a long time off... Sorry to make my first post so long and depressing but my stoicism has been pushed to the limit and I can't keep bending my husband's ear.

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Yorkie

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Re: Disheartened with plot
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2022, 18:18 »
Welcome to the forum - feel free to vent on here as much as you need to / want!

So sorry to hear this catalogue of woes. I'd certainly be complaining to the council if their weedkiller had drifted inside your plot and killed your plants  :mad:

I think it's not uncommon to have lulls in enthusiasm; I know I have had years like that, particularly if other stuff is going on in my life.  I've learnt to hang on in there, and wait to see if the enthusiasm comes back. It generally does, particularly if I'm able to have lots of chats with other people on site to break up the periods of boredom.
I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days all attack me at once...

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Growster...

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Re: Disheartened with plot
« Reply #2 on: June 06, 2022, 18:52 »
Just keep going, Hevski, you're just at the stage we all know when we say 'oh s*d it', and think about giving up...

Yorkie sums it all up in the best way, so, just take a breather, forget the trials, take some time off even, but as sure as eggs is eggs, you'll be back! After all, twelve years is a great record, and not one to be sneered at by anyone, and we're all here to make a difference!

Had you been closer, I have several tom plants going begging, but...

;0)

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snowdrops

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Re: Disheartened with plot
« Reply #3 on: June 06, 2022, 20:18 »
Hi there & welcome to the site. It can be disheartening at times & must be more so if you are having thefts. Is it a secure site? If so, any ideas whom it might be?  I’m a keen no digger too & find it frees my time up with not having  to weed so much. I’d say if you’re heading to retirement, hang on in there until you have more time before making a decision to give up as you might regret it bitterly once you have more time to spend on the plot,you might just get your mojo back.
A woman's place is in her garden.

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and add a comment here

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missmoneypenny

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Re: Disheartened with plot
« Reply #4 on: June 06, 2022, 22:56 »
You have my sympathies, this reminds of something out of the New Testament, but updated for the 21st century and allotments instead of the Middle East!
 I’m on my 11 th year and also finding this one challenging,  because of a combination of human factors ( very high impact new neighbours, plus  the long term patriarch of the allotments dying in January)  and now onion rot on all my alliums plus I’m just expecting tomato blight to rear its head anytime now. I think I was cruising along thinking every year would be better than the last, which it has been till now. Don’t give up just yet, I hope you get some successes soon to tide you over this slump.

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jaydig

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Re: Disheartened with plot
« Reply #5 on: June 06, 2022, 23:01 »
Welcome to the forum - feel free to vent on here as much as you need to / want!

So sorry to hear this catalogue of woes. I'd certainly be complaining to the council if their weedkiller had drifted inside your plot and killed your plants  :mad:

I think it's not uncommon to have lulls in enthusiasm; I know I have had years like that, particularly if other stuff is going on in my life.  I've learnt to hang on in there, and wait to see if the enthusiasm comes back. It generally does, particularly if I'm able to have lots of chats with other people on site to break up the periods of boredom.
I couldn't agree more.  I usually get this feeling some time around mid-winter and then get over it as soon as the spring begins.  This year I had definitely decided to give up the plot after a particularly long period of not being able to get down there.  When I finally had some time, however, even though my plot had never looked so bad in years, I felt I just couldn't give it up.  Yes, it's hard work and yes, we all have our ups and down, our successes and failures, but I couldn't bear the thought of supermarket veg and fruit, plus the loss of the chats and laughs to be had down there, the fresh air, exercise and the company of the plot robin.  I think they'll either carry me off on a stretcher or bury me where I fall!

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Clactonite

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Re: Disheartened with plot
« Reply #6 on: June 07, 2022, 18:26 »
You have every sympathy from everyone on here; of that I am certain Hevski. 

But every year brings different challenges and I am sure if you look again in a few weeks you'll feel a lot more positive about your plot.  We only missed the frost by one degree here.  Again sympathies there.

I've had years where I feel the same in my back garden.  I have four 3.5m by 4m plots set to different things, a greenhouse that nearly fills one, one for loganberry, apple, and blueberries, one for gooseberries, asparagus, comfrey and this year potatoes and beetroot.  The last one this year has sweetcorn, borlotti, garlic and various squashes (to try and find out which ones we like best and which grow best).

I write this to explain the background as to what went wrong last year.  The sweetcorn got hammered by high winds in July (we're three miles from the coast in Essex) - no crop.  I imagine Cambridgeshire has a high winds as well.  Last year I planted 48 borlotti seeds my way; tried and tested over twenty years... dig a small hole fill with water, drop the seed in, back-fill with soil and water again leaving a small dip to concentrate the water on the bean.  Never failed.  Until last year when FOUR came up.  FOUR.  This year after reading on this site, I chitted them and got 19 out of 20.  Pretty good.  Better than four out of forty-eight.

Last year's lettuce in the greenhouse were so eaten by blackfly they went from the greenhouse to the compost bin, no stopping, no collecting £200, do not pass GO.  The female blackbird learnt a new trick... flick a loganberry from the twig and then fly down to eat the fruit off of the path.  40% of the crop eaten by one family of blackbirds (I have the nets ready this year).  The dwarf beans failed miserably.  Dwarf as in crop size I thought.  We've had more already this year from just four plants.  We had sixteen last year.

But, but, but, hang-on, the carrots, well; dry hard clay soil in the driest part of the UK and we had tons of them in late October.  I was amazed.  We froze a wheelbarrow load (honestly) from a 4m by 0.5m broadcast strip, in the spare freezer and only eat the last of them last weekend.  The garlic went nuts too.  The asparagus thrived, the six tomato plants gave more than enough crop, okay the cucumber was useless too.  But this year everything looks good. 

So here's the thing, don't give up.  You could still sow beetroot, some bean varieties, peas, plant late potatoes.  You may find something heavily discounted at a local nursery.  We found a fantastic one local to us that is run by a married couple on their own, delightful and full of knowledge.  Never considered going there until the failure four years ago.  Now won't go anywhere else.  You might find a courgette that is pot-bound, a struggling leggy tomato, or two, or three, that needs love and attention, and decent soil around its roots, a pumpkin or or squash plant.  Or that other thing, you know, the one you didn't know about and don't know what it tastes like, that one. 

Or, as I did four years ago when we had over 100 days without rain and a hosepipe ban, I redesigned the beds to plant the fruit bushes, asparagus and apple tree so that I only needed to water very little.  I added two more water butts to the collection (nine now).  Oh, I even planted gladioli in a raised bed by the greenhouse to satisfy my wife, and a lonely carnation that she seems oddly attached to.  I didn't argue, I just planted them.  I made a new improved compost bin from second-hand decking boards.  Made a fire-pit type thing using a drum from a knackered washing machine, which I put on concrete blocks to make life easier.  Wonderful.

Chin up Hevski.  There's always next year.



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« Last Edit: June 07, 2022, 18:29 by Clactonite »


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