ALOTTMENTS - SUMMER - HOT BEDS AND STUFF

We've had a truly amazing Summer and Autumn here in Perth, Scotland. I've been so lucky to spend a lot of it outside gardening and also lucky to have a great bunch of gardening clients to work with here in Perth, also in Fife and at an allotment site in Dundee. Here's a few photos of the Dundee site where there's maybe seventy or eighty allotments altogether, it's been fascinating working there getting an understanding of the politics of a big site and what kind of help people need, and lots of fun too. 

The weather had left this polytunnel with a bit of lean to one side, so we just made the door with a bit of a lean as well

GET GROWING!

I read today that 80% of our fresh food comes from the EU. How secure is that? It's not difficult to grow some of your own stuff, salad is really easy for example, you'll be surprised what you can get from a tiny space. It doesn't just taste better, it's fresher, so more nutritious, you'll save some money, it hasn't been bathed in chemicals, possibly reared by semi-slave labour, and you're saving plastic waste and food miles.
PLUS you get an insight into growing food and how a mini eco-system works, and you'll have taken that all important first step from which you maybe learn more than any other.

This is our tiny garden in the little courtyard behind our flat. We wanted to keep some of our special herbs going so have got comfrey, sage, mint, verbena, valarian, thyme, penny royal, yarrow and a vine growing there.

SAVE YOURSELF WORK IN THE SPRING!

This is maybe the most useful tip of all! If you're planning to start a veg patch in the Spring, or are taking over an over-run garden, you can save yourself days of hard work simply by covering some of the ground over, killing off most of the stuff underneath. You'll still have to dig it over and weed it a bit, but it won't be anything like the work of digging it over from scratch in the Spring.

Mulching: i.e. covering new or bare ground over to reduce weeds. Can also be used to feed plants and improve the soil.

You can use covers like the one in the photo and take the whole thing up again, or you can use cardboard and let it rot away there, or a bit of both. Decent quality cover is better, that woven plastic stuff is a nightmare when it breaks down. Either way you'll have to weight it down.