Get Started with Your Allotment by Geoff Stokes
Is this the right book for me?
- Are you keen to get an allotment, but don't know where to start?
- Would you like help to successfully grow your own produce?
- Are you thinking about keeping livestock on your allotment?
Get Started with Your Allotment is written by the UK's leading Allotment Society and designed specifically for all those new to allotments. It will take you step-by-step through the joys of allotment gardening, right from the very first stages of finding an allotment through to keeping livestock.
It is designed for both beginners and those with some experience, and has plenty of information for those who wish to involve their children and family members in their new pursuit. With a complete guide to the tools needed, the ideal crops to grow, the soil conditions, troubleshooting and plenty of legal advice, it is the most complete guide available from the country's most experienced and trusted source of allotment wisdom.
Get Started with your Allotment includes:
Chapter 1: What is an allotment?
Why have an allotment?
How much produce can be grown on a plot?
What costs are involved in running an allotment plot?
How much time is required to manage a plot?
Chapter 2: Obtaining plot
Who provides allotment plots
Costs
Allotment tenancies
Chapter 3: Getting started
Clearing a neglected plot
Check your soil type
Organic and inorganic matter
Planning your plot
Working the soil
Chapter 4: Tools, techniques and resources
Tools
Composing
Bonfires
Water
Chapter 5: What to grow
Which crops
Seeds
Vegetable varieties
Herbs
Fruit varieties
Chapter 6: Allotment buildings and other structure
Sheds
Greenhouses and polytunnels
Cold frames and cloches
Propagating frames
Fruit cages
Site and plot security
Chapter 7: Children and allotments
Getting children involved
Chapter 8: Livestock and wildlife on allotments
Livestock
Wildlife
Organic or inorganic?
Chapter 9: Allotment and gardening associations
The benefits of forming an allotment association
The essentials of forming an association
The committee
The first formal meeting
Joint activities
Self-management
Chapter 10: The allotment gardening year
Chapter 11: Recipes
Learn effortlessly with an easy-to-read page design and new added features:
- Personal insights, tips, and summaries throughout the book
- Extension articles online
- Every book gives you one, five and ten-minute bites of learning to get you started