One of the real pleasures of an allotment is working to an older, slower, longer rhythm.   Take it easy.   Do a bit at a time, but never more than you can manage.

Get a couple of beds working well the first year, a couple of new beds the next, and before you know it, your allotment looks as good as (and maybe better) than the others.

First steps

• Cut all the weeds down, and start your compost heap.   Still hankering after an older, slower longer rhythm?   Have a look at the joys of using a scythe.
• Prepare one or two beds at a time - I prefer digging the land over, removing as much as I can of perennial and invasive weeds and their roots.   Add these to your compost heap.   This may well be the hardest work you will ever do on the allotment.   Prepare the beds well now, right at the start, and you will save time and effort in the future.
• This preparation has its own immediate rewards - other allotment-holders used to share with us their surplus harvest.   Their generosity was just what my kids needed to keep their interest going over the first few months.   And as long as I live, I will not forget the look on my children's faces when they were able to return the favour the next year!
  • Alternatives
    • Use a rotovator - but beware!   The blades will chop each piece of invasive thistle root into little pieces, most of which will grow a new plant;  where you had one this year, next year you will have 100.
    • Use a chemical weedkiller - it may be quicker, it's not organic, and you will still need to dig over and remove the most stubborn weed roots which have survived the chemical treatment.
    • Use a mulch.   Cover the beds with black plastic sheeting, old carpet (avoid carpet with the foam backing - it rots and flakes off into your bed), even layers of newspaper, all weighted down and left for several months.   The weeds will die if they can't get access to sunlight!
• Women I worked with in W Africa laid out their market gardens in raised beds, 4 foot wide by whatever long.   No theory or argument - just simple practicality;  you have two rules for the children
  • "keep to the paths"
  • "don't run on the paths"
• There are good reasons for using beds -
  • Beds give you and the children an easily measured sense of progress.   It's much easier to motivate them (and yourself!) to pick out all the couch grass roots from one bed than from a whole plot.
  • And, more important, they are better for the soil - it will not get compacted by walking on it!
• Work out your rotation plan for the next few years.   Include the beds you are going to bring under cultivation.
• Choose your crops - keep it simple to begin with.
  • I grew potatoes on half my new plot to clear the soil of weeds I'd missed (lots!).
  • I chose a small selection of the easier and more reliable vegetables - peas, broad and French beans, beetroot, parsnips, onion and shallot sets, and leeks.
  • My own brassica seedlings, so carefully nurtured, were a complete failure;  but other allotment-holders had loads of plants to spare.   Or buy seedlings from a garden centre the first year.
  • My carrots were "disappointing".
• Set aside a good area (in my plot about 20%) which is the kids' own.   They can plant what they want to plant (you'll still have to do most of the work, though!).
  • It has its risks - the first year my kids wanted strawberries and somebody came in and nicked all their plants!
  • The next year however, Ayman and Halla grew some beautiful sweetcorn;  Ayman tried lettuces another allotment holder gave him - and they were FAR better than mine;  and Tamanna grew superb leeks, Charlotte potatoes, brussels and kale, and herbs.   The look of simple pride and bewilderment as she was able to share her potatoes with other allotmenteers was worth any amount of trouble and hard work!
  • And each year since, they get more ambitious!   And succeed where I fail - the pleasant trials of parenthood (at which point I turn green with envy).