The winter months are a busy time for allotmenteers with roots to dig
Daylight hours are short and more often than not the weather thwarts one’s plans for a few hours on the plot, but when a gentle breeze blows away the clouds and the sky is blue, there’s nowhere better to be.
Winter can be a busy time, there are leeks to pull and roots to dig.
Even if the soil is too waterlogged to stand on, there are other tasks to get on before spring comes.
Making sure there are enough stakes and canes is on my list. Split bamboos need the ends trimming to extend their useful life for another year or two.
On good days in winter the number of people on the site is almost as many as at peak harvest time in summer. With limitations on what we can do elsewhere, the usual temptations have evaporated.
What’s particularly good about visiting the allotment just now is having an opportunity to pass the time of day with people outside your normal bubble even if it is at a communal compost heap.
Looking after the soil should be top of every plot holder’s mind at this time of year.
I often think that newcomers spend too much time kitting out a new hut at the expense of building some compost bins.
These needn’t be grand or expensive affairs.
A few scrap pallets wired together work very well.
This is the place where all the weeds and vegetable peelings get dumped. A mixture of woody stems and green material layered alternately is ideal for this.
At least two bins are called for, one being filled up while the other rots down.
Here on our plots in Musselburgh we have a good depth of soil but these conditions are not guaranteed on all allotment sites.
Two west coast sites I often visit at Ullapool and Lochaline only have a thin covering of soil on top of a layer of rock.
In Ullapool and Lochaline the allotmenteers are gradually building up their plots with compost.
The site at Fairlie in Ayrshire presented its creators with an even bigger challenge with no soil at all.
It is situated on a brownfield site, formerly an old boatyard, on the shores of the Firth of Clyde.
As well as compost bins, plotholders have turned to vermiculture, hotboxes and harvesting seaweed to provide material to fill their raised beds.
One sunny evening a few years ago I dropped in to see for myself and marvelled at its transformation from a bustling industrial area to a productive site.