We have had our allotment for two years now. We have never had a garden to be able to grow things in, therefore it has been a steep learning curve. We have had lots of advice and encouragement from our fellow allotmenteers but we have still made mistakes.
The first year, we hadn't a clue what we were doing ,and so we grew everything we could. We had no idea of how much space some vegetables take up when they have grown so we ended up with vegitation all over the paths and we also found that we didn't like some things so this year, we vowed to only grow what we knew we would eat.
This has worked to some extent, however, we still have too many courgette and tomato plants, the slugs have decided they like our lettuce and carrots (even though we have grown the latter under fleece for the duration of their growing time) the perpetual spinach has run amok and the climbing beans didn't grow but what can you expect from the French? The weather hasn't been good enough to ripen our tomatoes yet, but overall we haven't done too badly and at least we are eating more than the pests this year!!
After reading Hazel's blog about the show, we have to agree that forward planning is the only way to go so, next year,
I think that spacing stuff out is one of the most difficult things - you look at a little seedling like a brussels sprout, and think 'that'll NEVER need a 2' by 2' space...!' But it does! and you end up like I have with the squash plants going EVERYWHERE and having to beat them back with a big stick...
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