2021: Allotment in Review

Hello Everyone and Happy Holidays!

Popping in to talk about the growing season at our allotment in 2021 and some thoughts about what worked and what didn’t. I’ll be sharing a lot more of this rented space because, as it turns out, our little plot in our local community garden is going to play a central role in my future gardening adventures since our new home is in an “urban forest” and not sunny enough for a rose-filled garden.

At the allotment, to make space for more flowers, it’s going to mean an overhaul of how we grow and what we grow as well as me being OK with growing maybe a couple dozen roses vs a couple hundred. I’m going to have to be super picky! (If you have any suggestions for roses for my cutting garden, please do leave a comment on this post!)

Strangely enough, I’m excited about this. I love a new gardening challenge and I’ve never grown roses strictly for cutting so this should be interesting. So, let’s talk about what we’re working with at our allotment. As you can see from the photo above, we have a few raised beds already in place. In one of those beds, I replaced the peppers with 4 ‘Distant Drums’ roses this autumn so the rose planting begins. Also, I want to draw your attention to the upper right hand corner…see that plot next to ours? After years of being a squeaky wheel, we finally get to use it beginning in spring 2022! Such good news and such perfect timing!

But let’s dial back to the 2021 growing season. Here you can see some of our sugar snap peas we grew. They were from seeds I collected from the 2020 season. They started out shaky but picked up and soon we were harvesting tons and tons. However, I will not be growing edible peas next year as I’m saving that space now for the sweet peas which I normally grow at home but will now be moved to the allotment. I also won’t be growing onions. Although we had a massively successful crop–all grown for the $5 bags you get at Lowes–they were a pain to dry and store and their space will be taken up by, you guessed it, roses!

Here’s a quick snap of the allotment I took in October. The weather was so warm we were still harvesting raspberries and strawberries. I have almost too many strawberries, to be honest, because I also have about a dozen of them in pots. Also, the chipmunks get to them often times before I do. Next spring I’ll probably give some away. There’s another view of that new plot (left hand side.) Jesse and I are trying to decide whether to put raised beds or rows. Raised beds would be nicer but so much more work and cost initially so we’ll see.

Here’s a view over our raspberry hedge into the rest of the community garden. I like our raspberries, but I wonder if I planted too many. If I were to narrow it down just to one variety it would be ‘Caroline’ which fruits basically all summer and into autumn.

Our biggest success of 2021 had to be the peppers. The summer was so hot that they did amazingly well. See this bucket of poblanos? I was picking buckets like this almost DAILY. When just one poblano costs $3.50 at the market, I feel like this was good value for a packet of seeds that only cost about 5 bucks.

Here’s our first harvest of potatoes, a variety called ‘Pinto Gold’. They were delicious!

Jesse wanted to grow really tall sunflowers. I figured let him get it out of his system, haha! They were fun but also kind of a pain to clean up since they were so big and heavy and guess who got stuck with dragging them to the compost area. 😉 The tomatoes were pulled down in a storm and that’s why they’re sagging. Next year they’ll have stronger supports.

Here’s another photo from October. These empty rows once had tomatoes but now they’re getting planted with roses in tight formation. Behind those sunflowers is another row I cleaned out and planted with roses including: Quietness, Jude the Obscure, Sweet Mademoiselle, Antike 89, Dark Desire, R gallica officinalis, Dee-Lish, Munstead Wood, Honeysweet, Mother of Pearl, Apricot Candy, Buff Beauty, Veilchenblau, Lyda Rose, St Swithun, James Galway, Ivor’s Rose and lots more little cuttings of others that we’ll see if they make it through the winter before I get too excited about them!

I didn’t get many photos of the allotment during the peak growing season because we were so busy with getting our house on the market. But here’s a photo of a summer harvest heading home including the ‘Savor’ melons I grew in the coldframe. They grew really well in the coldframe but the taste was surprisingly lackluster so I won’t grow them again.

Everything going into this roasting pan (except the garlic) was picked only hours before. So delicious! Our favorite tomato of the season was definitely ‘Granadero’ which, like everything else, came from Johnny’s Seeds.

A view of the allotment in May. It’s funny how different and fresh everything looks in spring. We had bluebirds followed by sparrows in the nesting box. They come back every year. The landscape fabric is absolutely necessary on the paths to help with the weeds. Everywhere else I use cardboard and a thick layer of compost or straw. In between rows I lay boards to help prevent compaction. This allotment, like all my gardens past and future is NO DIG.

We’re so lucky to have the barn and horses right next door. The horses often stand and watch me while I garden. They’re great company!

We grew ‘Provider’ beans again–they’re consistently my favorite. They’re incredibly productive and I still have bags and bags of them in the freezer. The cucumbers are ‘Little Leaf’ and did quite well. We didn’t have as much problem with cucumber beetles this year as we did last but I don’t plan on growing cucumbers next year as they’ll be replaced with flowers.

If you grow cucumbers, you must also grow dill…I think it’s a rule! We made lovely pickles last summer.

A tomato blossom at sunset…

We had some zinnia drama last year. The slugs ate almost all of my seedlings so I was forced to buy seeds for varieties I didn’t really want so I could at least have something. They were fun as all zinnias are but I don’t think I’ll grow them again in 2022 because they take up a lot of space and next year….