We Grow Our OwnThe trials and successes of life on our allotment

My crusade for the new year is get everyone growing their own fruit and veg. I know that everyone is not lucky enough to have an allotment, a garden or even a patio. However, you can still grow your own food in even the smallest space, which is why I came up with the idea for my campaign – “Grow One Pot.” I want everyone to make a pledge to grow one thing this year and tell me what it is by leaving a comment below, and tweeting about it using the hashtag ‘#growonepot’

Looking back at my 2011 New Year’s Resolutions post, I was pleased to see that I had accomplished some of my ‘resolutions’ for last year, although lack of time and job hunting made sure that I never had the time to get round to doing all of them.

It doesn’t matter whether you have a small garden, or a large allotment plot, you always seem to run out of growing space, especially in the busy late Spring and early Summer months.

However, there are a couple of techniques that can be used, which will ensure that you get the absolute most out of your growing space.

It’s been gorgeous weather on a Bank Holiday for a change, and I hope you managed to spend as much time in your allotment or garden as I have.

Since I’m now the allotment site secretary, I was able to get advance notice of which plots on the site were becoming vacant, and I have bagged myself what I think is called a “project.”

Following on from my post on how to clear a new allotment,I thought I’d share some tips about crop rotation, which will again give your fruit and vegetables the best chance of growing up to be big, healthy, strong and tasty!

I’ve seem a few people recently on Twitter that have been lucky to have landed themselves an allotment, but are a little bit anxious about what they have taken on. I thought it would be a good idea to share my tips about how to start clearing a new allotment.

I know that I’m a little late to the party with this, but after seeing this on other people’s blogs, I thought it would be good for me to share my allotment based resolutions for the year, and also for me to look back in a year’s time to see how many have been achieved.

Hopefully, your New Year’s Resolution is the same as mine last year, and that you have decided to get an allotment and to grow more of your own fruit and vegetables.

Taking on a new plot can be daunting, especially if it has been left and not cultivated for a while by its previous occupants.

It seems as if Autumn is already giving way to Winter in my part of the Midlands, so I have been digging up all those lovely summer crops of sweetcorn, late beans, etc, and my mind has been turning to what I can plant over Winter and next year.

Time for a little bit of a catch up I think, since I have been a bit stingy with blog updates recently!