This is how it happened. About a year ago (June 2012) following 6 months of eating a veggie diet and realising that veg and fruit is EXPENSIVE, I put my name down for a local allotment. Or, so I thought...
There are two allotment sites in the town where I live, and I had heard that it's difficult to get a plot. For no reason at all, I suddenly remembered in the middle of the night at the end of March 2013 that I'd signed up to the waiting list for an allotment. I did a search of the contact for allotments in my local town and found an email address. I also found a link to another local allotment site that indicated that there were plots available. Suspecting that the information might be out of date, I emailed... and the next morning at about 9.30 a.m. received an answer. To the effect that... unfortunately, there was no record of me on the waiting list, but that there were indeed several plots available on this site and I could certainly rent one of them. Just like that! No waiting, no list, no negotiation. All I had to do was sign the agreement, send off my cheque for £13.50 (yes... only £13.50!) and we could start straight away. This was for a half-plot which, because I had little gardening experience, I was advised would be a good way to start.
The next weekend we eagerly drove down to the allotment site and found our half-plot. As we had a look round a seasoned allotmenter introduced himself and, on hearing that we had a half-plot, advised us that we'd be better off going for a full plot as most people that started with a half-plot quickly found that they had run out of space to grow all that they wanted. Furthermore, there was a plot right next to his, that had been well-maintained and on which he knew what had been grown. Long story, short - phoned the allotment lady at the council and asked if we could rent that plot instead; paperwork was sent out, extra cheque for another princely sum of £13.50 was sent off and we were the proud and slightly nervous 'owners' of Plot 86.
When you see a plot of land 10m x 4m it looks both very small and very large at the same time! Small because you doubt that you can grow all you need on such a compact plot of land, and large because you realise that the whole thing has to be dug over ,maintained, weeded, planted, weeded, maintained, watered, weeded......
And so began our foray into growing our own veg and fruit, into a new world of digging and mulching, sieving and rotovating, seeding and sowing and total confusion about what to put in, where and at what time.
What follows is our experience of renting an allotment and, by trial and error, with advice and the expertise of the other excellent allotmenters, our adventure of raising veg from seed in a plot of sodden, clay, earth on a sloping site in Sussex.
I hope you enjoy the story and would love it if you were able to learn from our experience and to also contribute your ideas/views/experience via the comments facilty below.
Here we go ......
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