Terry Walton on what he’s growing next year
I’m putting dark evenings to good use by planning future crops
These lengthening dark evenings are the perfect time to get out the seed catalogues for next year’s offerings and think about what you’re going to grow to tempt your palate next summer.
The glossy pictures of all types of vegetables grown to perfection are too much and tempted me into buying much more than I planned! I try to stick to many of the crops that have served me well in the past, because the number one objective of allotment gardening is to take home fresh, tasty vegetables.
This doesn’t stop you trying something new, though, and the pleasure of this way of life is to add challenge and variety to the plot. I try about four or five new additions each year, some being vegetables I’ve not grown before or new varieties of some of the standard veggies I usually grow. Rarely, however, do they grow into the perfect specimens pictured on the packets that tempted me to buy them in the first place!
In these days of ‘credit crunch’, it’s well worth a group of gardeners getting together and combining orders. Seed companies offer massive discounts to bulk buy and these can be up to 50 per cent off the catalogue price. Show that same sharing and caring community spirit that exists out on the plot and apply it to a group buy. This will bring you all together in the winter months and into the bargain will keep some extra cash in your pocket.
I’ll soon put up some staging in my empty greenhouse to house chrysanthemums over winter, but out on the plot these autumn flowers are still providing bunches of beautiful blooms for my wife.
Meanwhile, I’ve been thinking about the wildlife situation on the allotment. We’ve a fair range of native birds in adjoining hedges, but mammal-type wildlife is in short supply. In all my half century-plus on this allotment I’ve never seen a hedgehog, which is a pity because these are one of our allies in the continual slug wars. People say to me ‘why don’t you import some?’ I think if they wanted to be there, though, they would.
One mammal, though, whose absence I welcome is the veggie-nibbling rabbit. Their lack may also explain why there are no foxes present, either. No rabbits, no food, no foxes. But what has never been isn’t missed and life goes on just the same.