Plot 52A June 2019 Update

Although I have included a lot of photos of my Plot 52A in posts over the months, I haven’t dedicated a post as it is in the whole. I had dabbled with a YouTube channel to video regular updates but there comes a time when too many social media outlets take up too much time. I have let the Plot52A videos go by the board with my blog, Instagram and Twitter being quite enough.

Plot 52a in 2018 before it was mine

Towards the end of last year I was offered this lovely 120 square meter half plot which had been cared for by a lady who had it for many years but owing to back problems could no longer keep it up. A number of the beds were covered with membrane, many as you can see were covered with marigolds and borage. There were, and still are, a number of fruit bushes.

Plot 52A 1 June 2019

The left hand side of the plot now has potatoes – International Kidney (Jersey Royals, Charlottes and a main crop of Maris Piper. Under the net are mini sweetcorn, a couple of squash and dwarf French Beans – a Three Sisters planting, click on the link for more information. The peas are ‘Champion of England’, a tall old-fashioned pea. The bed beyond that has carrots, parsnips (topped with radishes) in a raised bed and next to that are red onions and garlic.

The right hand side bed is full of fruit bushes: a gooseberry, a red currant, a blackcurrants, blackberries and raspberries, and the most delicious, sweet strawberries growing everywhere in between.

There is a small raised bed towards the front of the plot which I pondered over what to do with. This week I planted a courgette – one is quite enough! A new one for me is growing sweet peppers outdoors, so I thought I would just try two to see how they fair. French marigolds will add color and make for good companion planting.

Flowers

There was a spare covered bed between the fruit beds where I am growing sweet peas and just behind them I have a cutting garden.

Most of the plants in this bed, apart from the zinnia, antirrhinums and alstroemeria, I have proudly grown myself. My cutting flower bed has: small bronze sunflowers, Amaranthus ‘velvet curtains’, cleome ‘violet queen’, gladioli (from tubers obviously), cosmos ‘purity’, antirrhinums and echinacea. The alstroemeria, planted in each corner at the front are ‘Indian Summer’ so should create a blaze of color.

The cottage garden

As I no longer have a garden at home, a cottage garden was an important addition to the plot. There was already one bed the previous owner had for garden flowers, hence the enormous achillea mollis! The two sisyrinchium were an inherited bonus. The top and left hand I planted up myself and included roses, salvias, day lilies, scabious.

Finally, along with sweet peas, I love growing dahlias and got a little carried away this year buying tubers, so they now have a bed to themselves. The little fence I made using branches from the recently pruned cherry tree, I forgot to mention I had one of those as well.

I feel I have made a lot of work for myself but I love being on the allotment and most people are very friendly and chatty. There are always one or two that keep themselves to themselves but that’s people. At the the end of the day, there is often a small gathering on someone’s plot with a glass of wine, so it’s a very sociable life.