Ah the institution of the british allotment system. one could write a book about them - as I’m sure someone may have done so already??
My mother-in-law moved to a small estate of newly built cottages for retired folks. She has worked in the local hospital for a long time and apparently the council in due consideration of her and others services allocated them these beautiful new cottages. I and my kids would walk through the woods for 30 mins to visit her.
If I recall she had a small and I mean small front lawn and a slightly larger back lawn and that was it. Other retired colleagues of hers, the more robust and usually male took another option, and that was renting an allotment from the local council at a nominal fee. I can remember standing in her back garden, on a slopping hill looking at these allotments in the distance. You could see matchstick men pottering around and many had erected small sheds for their tools etc. I did pay one close up visit and found them all to be industrious and well kept. Sad to hear that some get neglected and unused. There must be thousands all over UK in various forms of use or non-use. When I lived close by I had a sixty feet long back garden x 20 feet wide which kept me pretty busy tilling and growing. Fortunately I had purchased an old mechanical tilling machine which although slow did a much better job than I could manually and saved my back a bit! I think on recollection we grew enough vegies to last 6mths of the year before running out and resorting to shopping. The allotments of England heh - part of the culture; the history the future??
If you don’t have an allotment, you don’t have to worry about losing the plot, maybe that is a consideration, for some folks who wish to grow their own, but end up wandering round Farmfoods.
Sorry if it’s an obvious question Galty, but you’re not growing them in the same patch every year are you?
And what about the type you grow, are there more ‘resistant’ types you could try like there are in blight-resistant tomatoes and fly-resistant carrots etc?
Failing that, all I can think of is try a smaller amount in a container or a couple of Grow-bags with fresh compost, so it would be a brand new growing medium altogether.
It must be very frustrating, and you must be wasting time and money as well.
Oh, one more thought, you may have already read this, but here is a link to the RHS and what they say about White Rot. It may be worth a read?
Best to grow onions in the same ground year after year Unless you have had white rot…use jays fluid and wait 3 years to plant onions again other things can be planted.
I Have just taken over an allotment, within walking distance of my house its been left fallow for a number of years and boasts a very impressive amount of weeds! still to wet to start digging but maybe soon
We have two honey bee hives on the site shame can not support any more
They Like Rosemary and Comfrey flowers which I grow, which will take another month to appear.
Now me being a bit of a slob left some sprouts in from last year which went to seed and started to produce flowers.
Took a break and sat down and watched the honey bees collecting pollen of the sprouts flowers and watched the honey bee having a punch up with a bumble bee both going for the same flower(another 200 hundred next to them)
but maybe soon