The success of next summer is based on what you do in autumn and winter
If anyone doubted that having an allotment was good for wellbeing, this has been the year to demonstrate it. Way back in March we worried that we’d be forbidden from visiting our allotments.
Plotholders were delighted this was not the case but we didn’t get the final confirmation for a few weeks.
By then I know I was not the only one to have spent more time than usual getting seeds and potatoes planted. As we hover in and out of various levels of restrictions, allotments have remained constant.
It may feel like the end of the year, but this is not the case in horticulture.
Professor Sir John Curtice, patron of the therapeutic charity Trellis and an allotmenteer, summed it up when he said that the success of a garden in summer is largely a result of the work you put in during the autumn ( and to a lesser extent) winter.
Seed catalogues and nurseries are offering bare rooted plants for sale just now. Not only are these much cheaper than buying the same varieties in pots in the spring, but these dormant plants establish themselves well over the winter and romp into growth as soon as warm weather comes.
I’ve just taken delivery of a little bundle of strawberry plants, tied up with string in a polythene bag. Top growth was sparse but the roots are extensive.
The supplier let me know they were in transit so I was prepared to deal with them straight away. After plunging them in a bucket of water for half an hour, I planted them out in a prepared patch on the plot.
If the weather is chilly but dry, spreading compost is an ideal warming job. An old gardening book, T. W. Sanders’ Kitchen Garden and Allotment, describes how to dig deep trenches across the plot in which to bury manure and recommends this is done every fourth year.
Happily this exhausting procedure is no longer considered advisable. It is sufficient to dig out the compost bin and spread the material thickly over the bed.
During the winter, worms and microbes will work their magic drawing it down into the soil beneath.
Any material insufficiently composted can be tossed back in the bin.
Inevitably some weeds will sprout on the surface through the winter but it’s easy enough to hoe them off or pull them out from time to time before they cause a nuisance.