~ WORLDWIDE Vegetable Allotments ~ REVIVAL of last years thread ~

[lupinfarm]

Wow you guys have been super busy with the allotment blogs and the like since I was last here. I just started with my own raised beds in our garden, not an allotment, but shh

I like seeing how everyone sets up their raised beds, and the like. Its something for me to look at and get an idea of what I can do. Our garden is still covered in about 6 inches of snow, but over the last few days its melted fairly quickly and we're probably down to 3 or 4 inches. Its easy to shovel away in most places.

 

[boggybranch]

Allotment gardens have just about become an obsession with me. Changing my whole garden to boxed and raised beds with flower spots mixed in. Put in 2 boxed spots (that makes 4, so far, with the largest being 15' X 20') today. Hope to put in 3 more, tommorrow. They will all, eventually, be raised beds (when I can fill em up). The weather was fantastic, here, today.

 

[lupinfarm]

Oh me too Boggy! I've been busy the last couple days getting raised beds ready. We have such a weed problem here, our soil is very fertile because the area I have as a garden used to be a cattle sacrifice area and was so for about 80 years up until 60 years ago. Sometimes I find bits of old wire fencing in the ground!

for my tomatoes, 4ft x 4ft...

..and it even has a polytunnel cover which I put on today to keep the soil I put in there nice and toasty until its ready for planting..

for my peas, I have 2 of them.. 2ft x 10ft

I'm going to paint all the beds in either chocolate brown or black paint as well to seal them and to keep the warmth in the soil..


I even gave my raised beds and garden a folder in my photobucket this year! We're going simple with the vegetables, and I even have a big raised garden in the front garden for my potager garden/cottage-kitchen garden. My mum is english and always believes in the use of a cottage-kitchen garden/potager garden.

This is made out of limestone from a 150 year old limestone garage that was felled last year near us by a wind storm. Its not finished yet, and I'm going to take rock from our fencelines to double or triple up the height of the walls. I have lots of coneflowers, lupins, strawberries, and we had tomatoes, all kinds of herbs, scarlet runner beans, tendergreen bush beans, etc. in it last year. This year i'm using the big portiont to plant cukes and possibly pumpkin.

 

[boggybranch]

Tooo cool.....literally.

Bet it's awful hard waiting for that snow to get gone.......that's some nice looking beds, too.

Hope to get my roll of hay to mulch the beds with, tomorrow, too.

Man....I love this time of year.......here.

 

[lupinfarm]

It is a little irritating, but the snow has melted off a lot in the last few days and there is hardly any left. The pea bed is made from a 2x6 and the snow is only about halfway up now.

I use the spent hay from the goat shed, the goats have pooped all over it and its great. I'll get the chickens to mix it into my big huge 5ft x 20ft raised bed that I'm putting raspberries in. I'll have to dig down below the landscape fabric to put them in, but it'll be great for weeding! I've got that bed half filled, I got my truck bed filled up last season twice with screened black earth, one bed for that huge thing, and another for the big bed in the front garden.

I'm getting soil delivered this year.

 

[Hattie the Hen]

Hi lupinfarm

I think your raised beds look great -- good for you. It's a lot of work filling them, as I know all too well, along with boggy b !! I have two more to fill this year plus a couple of smaller but deeper ones for carrots & other root veg.


Here is an article about a community garden in Australia:

http://dillydalleydoolittle.typepad.com/dilly_dalley_doolittle_g/2008/04/distressing-exp.html

The rest of her gardening blog is interesting:

http://dillydalleydoolittle.typepad.com/

Edited Later to add another Australian site to do with seeds & general information:

http://hillsandplainsseedsavers.blogspot.com/

Any day now I shall be able to get out & dig over my existing 7 raised beds & start sowing my peas & broad beans ect. The soil has been far too wet & muddy to start any earlier (all that melted snow followed by a lot of rain). we have had nearly a week without rain but still with temperatures well below freezing so the ground was freezing at night & warming up during the day in the wonderful sunshine.

Oh! come on Spring......!!


:tools Hattie :tools

 

[lupinfarm]

Hattie, I filled the two enormous ones last year. Ugh, now that was a pain! We spent the day hauling wheel barrows from the truck to the garden and the truck to the front garden. This year I'm having it delivered by one of those big dump trucks to down by my barn, and we'll fill up our lawn tractor trailer. Much easier. I've started filling them with some manure, compost, and a bit of peat I had hanging around. Then I'll throw in lots of black earth, mix, and heavily mulch. It worked for my big bed last year, it was all stuff I had hanging around LOL.

 

[Hattie the Hen]

We seem to be having some problems with our bought in bags of compost in the UK:

http://vegplotting.blogspot.com/2010/03/compost-crisis.html


:rose Hattie :rose

 

[Hattie the Hen]

:tools :tools :tools :tools :tools


Hi there!

Just now on the 5pm BBC TV news round they had this information:

http://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2010/03/grow-your-own-boosted-with-brighton-land-bank-scheme/

Part of the government's initiative to release more land for people to grow veg & fruit for their families.

:rose Hattie :rose

 

[boggybranch]

:tools :tools :tools :tools :tools


Hi there!

Just now on the 5pm BBC TV news round they had this information:

http://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2010/03/grow-your-own-boosted-with-brighton-land-bank-scheme/

Part of the government's initiative to release more land for people to grow veg & fruit for their families.

:rose Hattie :rose

Hattie,

Looks like the gov's getting the ball rolling. Sounds very positive, anyway.
I laugh everytime I read of a plan or program, over there, being described as a scheme. Over here, "scheme" is usually referred to something "shady" or illegal.....very negative word in the U.S.