What to grow in your first allotment year
A first allotment can swallow every weekend. Grow a few easy crops well, cover the rest of the plot, and learn your soil before you plan big.
Published
Your first allotment is exciting and a little frightening. The plot is bigger than it looked, the weeds grow faster than you do, and every neighbour has advice. This letter is what I wish someone had told me in my first allotment year: grow a few easy things well, cover what you cannot use, and spend the year learning your soil.
Start small on your first allotment #
Clear and grow on a quarter of the plot in your first season. Cover the rest with something that keeps the light off the weeds, such as old carpet without a rubber back, cardboard or a weed sheet. A small area you can keep up with teaches you more than a big one that gets away from you by July.
My own first beds were made the lazy way, and I still use the method. It is in my letter on making a no-dig bed.
Crops that forgive mistakes #
- Potatoes. They grow almost anywhere, and digging them up is the best day of the summer.
- Courgettes. One or two plants are plenty. Pick them small and often.
- Runner beans. Easy, pretty and generous, if you keep picking.
- Salad leaves. Sow a short row every few weeks for a steady supply.
- Garlic. Planted in autumn, harvested in summer, almost no work between. My letter on planting garlic has the details.
Learn your soil #
Dig a hole a spade deep in a few places and look. Is it sticky clay, loose sand, or dark and crumbly? Does water sit in the hole after rain? The answers decide what grows well for you, and how to improve it. Autumn leaves turned into leaf mould for the beds help almost any soil.
Your site may have its own rules about sheds, ponds and how much of the plot must be cultivated. Ask the site secretary early. The National Allotment Society also publishes general advice for new plot holders.
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The Allotment Letter is written by Margot Ellery on her plot in Sheffield.
About the author
Writer of The Allotment Letter
Experience Has worked the same half-plot allotment in Sheffield for eleven seasons, and volunteers on her site's committee
Margot grows vegetables on a half-sized allotment plot in Sheffield, on heavy clay soil and in a cold, wet spring. She writes The Allotment Letter every Thursday about what she did that week, what went wrong and what she would do again.
