Planning to plan

Ruben
Oct 18, 2018
2 min read

After a quick Google, an email to the Clerk of the Council and here I am, an excited yet nervous allotment holder!

The process was so easy, and the cost so cheap. They asked to sign up for 3 years which is a great amount of time to really make this space the Davis families living pantry.

The allotments at Corner Lane in Horsford have been split in half over time as people struggled to keep on top of it all. This half plot is 125 square yards (115sqm apr.) which feels plenty big enough for me.

Where to begin? My first thought is to understand exactly what is on the plot. Fortunately there was a crossover with the previous owner so I got to meet him and talk through what he grew and where.

I'll talk about crop rotation later, but for now I wanted to get a plan of the plot together. It's split in to smaller beds at the moment, so I measured out, making a note of the crops grown in there so I could split the land in to sections.

I've decided to keep the plot split in to beds for now. Although the clerk can't see why anyone would, I think having walkways would make life a little easier to get around and reach inside when planting/watering/harvesting.

I’ve collated the original messy plan in to something a bit more organised, and created a digital copy in the cloud. I did think about plotting it on a spreadsheet but I don’t think I need to. Good ol’ pen and paper should be fine.

I’ve done lots of research across different mediums however the most frequent have been:

The BBC Garden Party (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00tv83g) radio show which airs on a Saturday at 2pm on BBC Radio Norfolk or on the above link
Gardener's World on the BBC, which is not the Friday night TV I thought I'd get in to
The Royal Horticultural Society (www.rhs.org.uk) who have a great website, but also a useful Mobile Application called Grow Your Own
A book by Alan Buckingham called Grow Vegetables (ISBN 9781465444868) which I picked up in Aldi for a couple of quid and have read cover to cover a few times!

I know already there is so much to do, however being Autumn it is important to get the veg I need to plant now in, but the soil quality improved. Luckily the cattle manure is being delivered this weekend!

From my research so far I know some things I need to consider are: