Guy's Over the past couple of weeks I have been thinking about how to make my allotment more productive.
This season so far I have noticed a few things that I now can rectify from seeing the results so far.
My strawberries hardly produced any fruit, there could be a few factors why they didn't such as how old they were and where on the plot they had been planted.
My strawberries also got eat by squirrels and other animals that have decided that my plot is easy pickings.
My raspberry plants didn't produce much fruit either, in fact, the amount of fruit was less than a unit full which having 30 raspberry plants you would expect more.
When I took the allotment these fruits were already on the plot living at the top of the land out of the way.
While I have been tending the land I noticed that the top of the plot does not get any water, this is because of a tree that covers the first quarter.
The tree is also sapping all the energy out of the ground and everything that I have planted up the top end hasn't done well.
Now I know that plants need water, but to water the top of the allotment is a big job, we don't have a tap so we have to use a water butt and watering can to get the water up there.
With how dry the soil is we were watering the raspberries and strawberries twice a day and we ran out of water.
Now the second change is part of the first change, stay with me.
In the middle of the allotment, we have a big shed/summerhouse this takes up enough space for 4 raised beds at 4ft x 10ft.
With the shed taking up all that space and the top quarter been dry I have decided to make a change that will benefit the allotment.
I am going to move the shed to the top of the allotment making space for 4 more raised beds, this also takes the dry land out of the way by using it for my shed to sit on.
So the top of the allotment would look something like this when it has been moved around.
There are other good reasons to move the sheds to these places, one it acts like a fence so no one can get on the plot unless they climb the fence or break in through the shed.
The big shed acts as a way in and way out, so even we would have to go in the allotment this way too.
The second little fence will be used as storage but I am thinking of putting my greenhouse next to it, then if anyone walking past was to throw stones it would be shielded.
With the big shed been there, it opens up the space down the bottom end of the garden making us have more space to grow our veggies.
So today we drove to our local horse riding center, the owner I have known him since I was 10 and picked up 5 big bags of horse manure.
We then took the strawberries out of the plot, since they gave such a little yield we decided it was time to compost them.
We then dug out the raspberries and made a nice trellis for them to grow up and dug in plenty of horse dung.
The plants are resting nicely in pots while we continue with more work, unlucky for us we had to stop at this point as it was time to pick my lad up from school.
It was an eventful day but so much fun to plan things out, it is a big change but I think it would work better with these changes put in place.
what do you think?
until next time my friends stay safe.