Deciding what to grow
Aside from the practical decisions about how to setup the plot and the raised beds drama… I’ve found the process for deciding and then starting off crops pretty confusing.
Obviously you can grow anything you want, and if you delve into the Youtube and allotment growing book world (as I did) it suggests comprehensive planting schedules to maximise the growing season. This is a good example of the steep learning curve I think there is when it comes to growing (and gardening).
In the end, the thing that simplified it for me was the realisation that I can just grow stuff I like to eat…
Sounds a bit silly, but this took a bit of the pressure off having to grow a lot of vegetables I don’t especially get excited about eating. So I decided for this first year to grow — or better put, buy seeds for:
- potatoes (chitted Jazzy bought from the allotment shop)
- radishes (bought from ally pally garden centre)
- broad beans (Hangdown Green)
- cabbages (Berns, Winter Paresa F1, Caraflex F1)
- chard (Bright Yellow, Fireworks, Rhubarb, Swiss)
- chicory (Palla Rossa 3, Castelfranco)
- courgettes (Nero Di Milano, Cocozelle)
- squash (Blue Ballet)
I bought my seeds from Tamar Organics who seem to have a nice selection.
No greenhouse…
One thing I’ve found pretty frustrating is figuring out an easy way into growing things from seed.
So much of the guidance online or in books assumes you either have a greenhouse, or loads of room at home (or a tolerance) to grow things from seed and devote loads of space at home to pots everywhere.
I don’t have a greenhouse, and our flat is small and not exactly designed for pots everywhere… it is shall we say ‘minimalist’…
The greenhouse idea seemed like something for the future if I get into allotmenteering in a big way. So I decided to try growing a few things from seed in a small way to see how it feels.
I found it a right faff to be honest. I can see the appeal of the greenhouse solution as it keeps all the mess out of sight. There’s probably a nice separation in both mind and physically of having the growing done elsewhere. Maybe if we had a big old house it’d feel different?
Anyway… one other frustrating thing was growing courgettes, broad beans and squash quite successfully at home (see above) but then having a terribly timed holiday in which I think I missed the prime window to plant them out.
My broad beans went all floppy so by the time I planted them out in the raised beds it didn’t seem like they’d survive!
I think it’s a lesson in actually how much growing affects what you might normally do at certain times of the year. I think it was only frustrating as I hadn’t yet learnt that lesson.
It was definitely a nice feeling to get things in the ground after all the palaver of the raised beds, growing from seed.
Onwards!