Since september 2016 I’m renting a 70 square meters allotment. I really like gardening, and after a year of gardenining on my balcony I decided it was time “to go big”. There is a lot possible to grow on a balcony, like blueberries and towers of green beans and buckets of parsnips. But I also really wanted to grow my own pumpkins and well… that would only have been possible if I would confiscate my neighbors roof tops. I almost did!
But that wasn’t a really good solution to my gardening needs and thus I started renting the plot. It is 10 meters long and about 7 meters wide. It’s actually half of a “normal plot” as they are mostly 100 or 150 square meters.
I have divided the 7 meters in half by running a path through the middle. The left side has 7 vegetable beds. The right side is a bit more wild, it has the strawberry patch, a herb and flower garden, my tool box, a tiny patio (aka the dumping ground), the raspberries, a couple of compost bins and two more smaller vegetable beds.
Since it is november and I have already started tidying up and mulching the beds with my selfmade compost there isn’t a really lot to show. But things are still happening, it’s not winter yet. So let’s walk around for a moment.
(Sorry for the quality of some of the pictures, it was real sunny this morning so some are a bit overexposed and I sadly only noticed that when I got home. Also you can click all of them to enlarge.)
First the overview photos, so you can see the left side and the right side from the main path:
The wildly overgrown strawberry patch. There are two main strawberries in here. The left part are Frau Mieze Schindler’s and the right part are Senga Sengana’s. The upper part, a third strawberry bed is ehm, I don’t remember and a mix of both the other two.
Next up is the herb and flower garden. There is quite a bit in here, so I’ll have to show it from two angles. The right part has been tidied up a bit. The left part still needs to be done. There is a Hyssopus officinalis there that is taking up too much space and needs to be moved to the back.
And then the seven vegetable beds. Since there are only things growing on three of them, I’ll show some of them together in one photo.
Bed #1, which is currently growing the sprouting broccoli I will be harvesting in February/March.
Bed #2, there is still some veg left here too; bunching onions, little gem lettuce, kohlrabi and bulb fennel.
Bed #3, #4 and #5 are (mostly) empty, although #4 could do with some more tidying up. In bed #5 I recently planted the garlic bulbs, but they aren’t showing yet. You can just see bed #6 which holds the parsnips. I’ll wait till after it has frozen a good bit to harvest those, they will be sweeter!.
Bed #7 and “the back row”. It looks really messy, but that is because I left the nasturtium as a mulch since I was out of compost. The back row is always a bit messy. I cleaned up last years leaves to use in the compost bin and planted three Digitalis’ in the left corner. Up to the right corner are some left over herbs I dug out from the herb and flower bed.
Okay, turning around to bed #8 and #9, the smaller beds at the right side of the garden. It looks really green, but that is mostly chickweed. Since it isn’t harmful I keep it as a ground cover. At the top of bed #9 is also a Artichocke growing. And you can just see a bit of the raspberry canes and dumping ground patio. 🙂
This was my November tour! Next month I can hopefully show you my gardening plans for 2020.
Do you have a garden too? What are your favorite vegetables? Are there any flowers/herbs you think I should try? Let me know in the comments and maybe they’ll end up in next years plans!
You have done so well so far on your allotment, at least you got beds made. I still haven’t even started making my beds yet as moved so much around first. Keep up the good work and I will keep popping back to see how you are getting on.
Thank you Micheal!
Indeed, making the beds has been my first priority. I use no-dig and don’t walk the beds. Therefore making a good path-grid was essential. The last two beds (the smaller ones, at the right half) are new though. That used to be a messy area, but it was too big to be able to reach the middle and thus I divided it in two. Much better now!