"keith kent" wrote And

I am enjoying Joe`s progress and applaude him for doing something
different in his design of the plot.

OK, fine, but he's wasted so much productive land between the beds and that
land has cost him money.

A new gardener on our site made small beds with paths around but I notice a
lot of the paths have gone this year and I bet he ends up with one central
path like me (plots are about 40ft wide with rabbit fencing around).

Why does a plot have to be in straight rows and blocks ?as long as the
plot is accessible who cares what shape it is .I am sure his plot will
look good and be productive.

Because straight rows are much easier to hoe, weed, water, look for pests
and diseases, rotate your crops ...... they are also the most productive way
to use a plot. My biggest fear is new allotment gardeners may well take a
lead from him, the blind leading the blind.

and
I like the fact he is learning and he is not hiding the fact, most
programs only show the good side.

Ok if it's made plain he has made a mistake when he makes one.

If i had a choice of dig his plot over by hand or have it scraped by the
council included in the plot price ,i know which one i would choose ,the
jcb everytime .

You obviously don't realise the top soil is the best most valuable bit and
it still has to be dug afterwards anyway. I dug my latest allotment totally
by hand when we started it, it's how I know what types of soil I have around
the plot, it's how I flattened it, it's how I found the buried brick path,
the bottles, the plastic bags....... it's how I cleaned up the soil.

I would choose to be organic so the chemicals would be a no go.

So it's OK for a couple of tons of JCB to trundle over your plot and remove
the best bit of your soil. The most important part of being organic is
looking after the soil, it's health and structure. Anyway, you would
probably still be left with quite a variety of perennial weeds to deal with,
some of which you cannot deal with permanently without chemicals, bindweed
comes to mind.


If you barely get a wheel barrow into your plot then maybe you have learnt
something from Joe ? go and take a good look at site`s first to see which
one is right for you like Joe did !


You think you have a choice in most areas of the country these days? We have
one plot left on our site and its triangular and totally overhung with tall
trees on two sides (the sunny sides) and you would have to get across
another plot to get to it. Suitable for fern growers only IMO. Other local
sites have waiting lists.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden