You’ll need to feed your plants for good crops. It can seem confusing — NPK ratios, trace elements, organic versus chemical — but for allotment growing, a few simple rules see you through. Your soil is probably in reasonable condition, and if it wasn’t cropped last year it may give decent crops with little extra…
Many plotholders advise not planting the same annual crop in the same place each year — for plant health and productivity, give it a new spot annually, with a minimum three-year cycle before a crop returns. This is where knowing your plant families pays off. The classic rotation is: Year 1 Year 2 Year 3…
A little botany helps. Vegetables fall into botanical families that tend to share characteristics — the part you eat, cropping season, growing needs or appearance: A few families offer just one crop of interest — sweetcorn (a grass) or lettuce (a daisy). The main fruits group under Rubus (raspberry, blackberry), Ribes (currants, gooseberry), Vitis (grape — there are a few vines…
Note how your plot sits relative to the sun. Most plots run north–south along their long dimension, so rows planted across the short dimension will shade each other. A six-foot row of runner beans casts a big shadow and is best aligned north/south, so it doesn’t shade neighbouring crops for most of the day but…