hello people its really great what you are achieving Danny ,i was in a similar position 20 years ago when i got my first allotment.My parents and grandparents taught me about gardening and self sufficiency from a very early age .
We grow enough potatoes onions and carrots to last a whole year as well as beans,peas cabbage broccoli parsnips beetroot silver skin onions for pickling tomatoes cucumbers and much much more ..I also have a small vineyard on the sunniest part of my allotment.This year we got 41 lb of grapes which are now bubbling away in a fermenting bucket.We are lucky enough to be able to keep chickens on ours as well.I have 6 maran hens which lay a really dark coloured egg the birds are very tasty too.
the carrot bed 2 feet off of the ground to keep the carrot fly off also onions to mask the smell
onions and potatoes
runner beans and peas
cabbages
grapes,black hamburg
some of the fruit before we froze it
after pickling onions and beetroot
hope you all enjoy this addition to Danny,s post .if anyone would like any advice on gardening etc just contact me and will use my years of experience to help
Hello Bignig, welcome to the forum. Are you sure that is an allotment and not a farm? It all looks so neat and tidy, certainly something I'll try to aspire to, thanks for posting the pics.
Hi Bignig, Thanks for posting, always great to see how others have themselves set up for growing. We did have a grape vine in the greenhouse when we took this on but it was so overgrown I had too just get rid of the whole thing for fear of losing the greenhouse to it's overpopulation.
I would love to have chickens on the allotment. Given the location of ours it makes it unsuitable due to environmental concerns raised by local residents and the council, I do however have plans to have a few hens at our home though.
Wild Camping motto - "Pitch Late, leave early and leave no trace"
Volunteer Parks and Forest Ranger in the RMBC district
Hello and thanks for the kind words..
As for the carrots arzosah we suffer quite badly on our plots with carrot fly.An old guy once told me that they can only fly about 18 inches off of the ground so i decided to try a very high raised bed ,as you can se its about 2 to 3 feet high.I grow carrots in this bed every year with no problems at all with carrot fly.I know what you was thinking about crop rotation and its very true in a lot of circumstances.All i do every spring is give the bed a good helping of compost and bone meal and rotavate it in.Then the seeds are set usually with some spring onions to mask the smell a bit just in case and i have done this for more than 10 years.Below is a sample of carrots i dug up today for dinner and they are beautiful so tasty
todays carrots
My specialty has to be parsnips i just cant get enough of them.I usually set 2 seeds in a card board toilet roll tube filled with compost and when they start to germinate i plant them in the garden toilet roll tube as well , as they grow they burst out of the toilet roll tube.When they are 3 or 4 inch tall pick out the smallest seedling and discard keeping the strongest.Below is an average plant from last year.
Okay so that time is upon me again. After some atrocious weather recently we have begun our spring/season preparations for this years growing.
Sunday 06/03/16
We decided to take an early morning trip up to the allotment in the snow to weigh up what work we needed to get done as well as start some early crop planting. Upon arrival one of our polytunnels was in a mess thanks to heavy snow and freezing rain. We have decided this tunnel will be ripped down and rebuilt but it isn't on my list as urgent.
Whilst at the allotment we decided it was time really to put in our early crop potatoes as well as seeding some leeks and peppers. We also already have our rhubarb crowns coming through and cant wait to get back into the swing of things.
Polytunnel in a state
My daughter mucking in with the potatoes
Rhubarb emerging
Early crop put in. The bed bow is well and truly rotten but here's hoping it holds for the early crop
Leeks and peppers potted and ready.
Wild Camping motto - "Pitch Late, leave early and leave no trace"
Volunteer Parks and Forest Ranger in the RMBC district
It all looks so neat and tidy, certainly something I'll try to aspire to, thanks for posting the pics.
and I love the emphasis on the grapes 
