Allotments and creatures.
me london
Posts: 119
So... thoughts are for first time having an allotment.. Fun and frustrating, hard work but lovely fresh air, and mainly it costs a fortune!!
Expensive weedkiller when my organic digging out approach doesn't work with couch grass, bindweed and thistles.
Having blackfly & slugs on my beans, so I pay out for bug killer when the soap spray fails and three bags of coarse sand for the slugs
Stopping cabbage fly on my cauli's & sprouts, so I pay out for expensive environment mesh & some poles.
Pay out for some fleece for my carrots to stop the flies.
Stopping slugs generally, pay for pellets then building electric boxes around some veggies and having to buy wood, wire and batteries. Copper tape around bottles to protect young plants.
Strawberries, paying out for netting, poles and straw to stop slugs and birds
Not to mention the cost of compost for the clay soil and more to quickly grow and replace the veggies I'd already grown which was eaten by critters.
I think... IF all that's left in the ground works, I may just about break even!
Seems that the work of actually digging out allotments and growing is a breeze compared to the cost and work of keeping every critter away from eating my crops!
Great fun tho 
Posts
I shudder to think how many good holidays I could have taken if I hadn't started on the gardening lark...
Oh yes, holidays. You can't go away without coming back to a jungle...
It's certainly not cheap, perhaps next year be better, grins.
It is your first year though and most of those things will stand you in good stead for a few more.
Once you have killed off the perennial weed roots you will be able to maintain order by hoeing off seedlings. And once you've got your compost bins up and running you won't need to buy so much as soil improver or need so much additional feed.
I don't have an allotment, just a veg patch, but given the cost of supermarket veg, you don't need a very large harvest to break even on the cost of the seed. If you don't grow F1 varieties you can save your own there too!
blighty mam I got my allotment plot a month and half ago still trying the dig out weeds option have couch grass,bindweed, thistles, docks, nettles lots of weeds but does mean the soils is fertile
lots of bits to pay out for there
does your allotment site get free horse manure? if not find a stable who would want to give it away
have a nose at Gumtree website sometime others chuck stuff out that is just what you want
how long you had an allotment plot? sounds as though you are doing well with growing even with creatures
You're doing fine - but watch out for badgers, cats, rabbits or mice!
Seriously, not all you're doing now will have to be repeated or re-purchased, and now that you know some of the enemies you will be able to take preventive action sooner next year. And when you do manage to harvest a crop without one of them getting there first, the triumph adds to the enjoyment of eating it!
Just picked some strawberries on my allotment. Reckon they must have cost at least £1 each, but they do taste gorgeous.
Don't get allotment chickens then.... A rough estimate of the cost of my first egg is in the region of £400
As time goes on, you will be amazed just how resourceful you can be - last year I was taking some stuff to the tip and someone else was throwing out an intact gazebo frame- it ended up in my car and is destined to become the frame for my fruit cage
I think it's best to regard an allotment or veg patch as an enjoyable hobby that pays for itself. If you tried to pay yourself an hourly rate, it would be costing you a fortune, but with any luck you'll eventually pay out less than the value of the produce.
And there are some things you can't put a price on, like the taste of that first strawberry or raspberry, or the first bunch of baby carrots; and having something home-grown to give as a little gift to friends and relatives, or people who've done you a favour. Recently an elderly neighbour had an attempted break-in and was quite shocked by it. I don't know her well, but I called to commiserate, and took a little punnet of strawberries to give her. A bought gift would have been inappropriate, but home produce is always appreciated.
Cheers for all the top tips and comments, made me smile loads - eeeek, £1 strawberries and £400 eggs.. not to mention looking out for other animals I've not even considered yet! Mind you, as of yesterday I now know what a pea weevil is, as they've taken over from the slugs with destroying my second lot of peas! It's been very educational.
But yes, it is good fun, I love growing lots of tasty veggies for the creatures we share this earth with..
and trying to outwit them in various ways! I hope I just get to taste something at the end. I am also keeping my eyes on skips for wood, wondering if some big warehouses would miss a few wooden pallets if I pinched them, raiding my partners stash of DIY scraps to build things with.. oh and dreaming of one day maybe having a shed. I have serious shed envy!
I do love it tho, sounds like am moaning, which I am, but hopefully in a more pondering type of way. It's certainly not what I expected - everyone told me when I took on an allotment last October that it's hard, physical work but I really think that part is a doddle compared to critter war!
Take care folks..