Spring is almost here and for us who have sandy soils they are starting to become lighter which enables us to get onto the soil earlier than other types of soil.
We took on an allotment last July and have spent the time since bringing it up to scratch as it had been let go which involved basically removing loads of old carpet which the last owners had used to control weeds and had failed and digging through and removing loads of grass weed.
Its quite a hard way to start an allotment as in your head you want to get planting loads of yummy stuff but without sorting out years of lack of maintainance we felt that it might get somewhat demotivating if we had run away and planted up the ground only to see it over run with weed growth.
Deciding on what to plant is a personal choice, we cleared all the old fruit that was on the site and replanted fresh trees and fruit bushes offering us a selection of choice from apples, pears, cherry, damson all on dwarf stock. We also planted a line of raspberries as personally I really enjoy the flavour of them as well as a few strawberries.
Now having filled some of the ground up with fruit the rest will be used for vegetable production, today we tried planting some solent white garlic bulbs which is a first for us, we have grown onions in the past but never garlic, we also tried some elephant garlic as well to compare what one we prefer if we are able to grow them well. Its amazing how many cloves you can get off one bulb and if they all come off we won't have to buy any.
Next week we are planning to sow some broad beans and plant some shallots depending on weather conditions.
More next week.....
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