Growing
Our growing is mainly focussed around edible crops – vegetables, fruit and herbs. We also grow flowers in herbaceous borders, raised beds, pots and hanging baskets at both the allotment and at home.
Keeping safe on allotments
Your allotment, or garden, may be a place to enjoy a peaceful hobby and relax, but like all things it does have some hidden dangers.
Accidents do happen. Our ground alone has seen three heart-attacks (one fatal), someone falling through their greenhouse and an injury caused by a petrol strimmer. On another groud we heard of a gardener who jerry-rigged his rotovator controls and then fell over, with the machine running over his leg. Even a seemingly innocent insect bite can lead to infection.
So now you are suitably alarmed… let’s see what we can do to make you allotment a safer place.
Planting garlic: starting cloves in modules
Today we discuss how we start out garlic in modules in a cold greenhouse in February for transplanting in Spring.
Got a slug problem?
Gardeners often cite slugs as the most annoying garden pest! They love to gobble up fresh shoots and they can decimate your seedlings over night. Here we discuss slugs, methods of control and their role in the ecosystem – it is not all bad!
Growing Figs in a Northern Climate
Fresh figs picked in early September You wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that figs are a Mediterranean crop. Fig trees grow like weeds on the rocky hillsides of many countries with a far warmer climate than the UK! However, there are varieties of fig that grow well in our cooler climate. We have figs fruiting well on our exposed Manchester allotment ground!
Growing Sweetpeas
It’s February and still cold and far too early to start most crops, but sweetpeas are very cold hardy. Sweetpeas make lovely cut flowers will attract pollinators to your growing area. They also like a longer growing season; If you are itching to get going then Sweetpeas are your crop to get that fix!
Allotments are good for your health
We all know we ‘should’ be more active, but how much activity should we do and does gardening count?
Here we discuss the guidelines for physical activity and how gardening can have a positive effect on your physical and mental health.Rhubarb: the promise of Spring to come!
Timperley Early 
Victoria 
Unknown
At Don’t Crop Me Now the rhubarb crop is well on it’s way. It is surprising to look at the growth rates of different varieties. Timperley Early is always well ahead and I think we will be cropping this within 2 weeks. Victoria is a much later variety and we also have an ‘unknown’ variety that is somewhere in the middle. I think this may be ‘champagne’. This produces very pretty pink (and sweet) stalks even without forcing.
Container grown potatoes
The History of Allotments
Sowing Chilli Seeds
Chillies like a long growing season. They are the first plants that I start and just about the only seeds I sow before mid-end of Feb. I always plan to sow my chillies between Boxing Day and New Year – it can give you a break from the festivities and is a great way to grab an hours peace and get the new growing season started! This year it didn’t happen, but I thought I better get my act together and get the chillies going.
Here I discuss how we start our chilli seeds and the varieties we will be growing this year.