Liz’s Allotment Life: Planting out the tenders

After weeks of nurturing

A seedling is a young plant grown from seed.

Planting out

Winter squash

Quite possibly my favourite crop, I have dedicated almost 1/6th of my allotment to these plants, plus planting a couple into my

Can refer to either home-made garden compost or seed/potting compost: • Garden compost is a soil improver made from decomposed plant waste, usually in a compost bin or heap. It is added to soil to improve its fertility, structure and water-holding capacity. Seed or potting composts are used for growing seedlings or plants in containers - a wide range of commercially produced peat-free composts are available, made from a mix of various ingredients, such as loam, composted bark, coir and sand, although you can mix your own.

Gardeners often use the word variety when referring to a specific plant, but the correct botanical term is 'cultivar'. Whichever word you use, it means a distinctive plant or plants, given a specific cultivar name and usually bred to enhance certain characteristics, such as flower or fruit size, colour, flavour or fragrance, plant size, hardiness, disease resistance, etc. Additionally, it is worth knowing that, botanically, variety has another meaning - it refers to a naturally-occurring distinct plant that only has slight differences in its looks. For example, Malva alcea var. fastigiata differs from typical plants by having an upright habit.

cultivar

A winter squash seedling planted out after being raised under cover, now that the risk of frost has passed

Courgettes

I always have a battle over how many to plant. When the seeds have gone to the trouble of germinating, it would seem rude not to plant them, but I think the six courgette plants I have planted will be far too much for one person. I tend to pick courgettes that are really small, about 10cm, to keep on top of them.

Leeks

Cucumbers and tomatoes

Another case of planting more than I probably need simply because I couldn’t bear to waste the seedlings. The 10 tomatoes should be fine as I love making and freezing tomato sauce, but 8 cucumbers seem excessive. I have grown ‘Marketmore’ and a personal favourite ‘Crystal Lemon’, and I am not quite sure what I will do with all the fruit if they succeed.

Outdoor cucumber plants benefit from a warm, sheltered position and regular watering during the growing season

Sweet potatoes

This is a crop that I love to grow, and I let them ramble across the beds rather than trying to train them upwards. I bought and potted up sweet potato slips, though if you save a tuber, you can simply take slips and propagate them yourself, as you might with a Dahlia. Here in Surrey, I simply plant them outside with no special attention or care, but in cooler parts of the country, a greenhouse or poly-tunnel might be needed to get a good harvest.

Sweet potato plants produce long trailing stems that spread across the soil surface as they grow

French beans

Seed sowing

Sweetcorn

None of my sweetcorn germinated due to those pesky mice, so I have direct-sown some between my squash plants and will keep my fingers crossed. I sowed 3 seeds per location. Ordinarily, squash rambling under sweetcorn works really well, a sort of ‘two sisters’, but I am a bit concerned that the sweetcorn seedlings, if they emerge, will be too small and will get swamped. I will need to keep an eye on them.

Sweetcorn can be raised in modules under cover before planting out, or sown directly outdoors once the soil has warmed

French beans

As I didn’t have enough plants for both my obelisks, I direct sowed some more around the base of the second one. If they fail, then I do have some dwarf French beans as a backup.

Carrots and lettuce

It's a good idea to keep up with the successional sowings on the allotment, and I decided it was time for another sowing of these two crops. I was really struggling for space by this point, so I sowed the lettuce under and around my

A plant that is restricted by pruning to usually one main stem, either upright or at a 45 degree angle, with short fruiting side-shoots (spurs). Apples, pears, gooseberries, tomatoes, redcurrants and whitecurrants are often grown as cordons, especially where space is limited. Sweet peas can be grown as cordons to produce large flowers for exhibition.

Other jobs

Watering

I'm always watering, fingers crossed for the cooler weather and predicted rain in the coming week.

Supporting plants

I tied in my tomatoes and French beans to their supports, and my Caucasian spinach was getting really leggy, so I tied it into its obelisk.

Strawberry runners

The strawberry plants are looking excellent, and the first fruits are starting to turn red. However, I still needed to go around and remove the runners that the plants were sending out. Later in the year, I will let a few of these roots grow to increase my number of plants and gradually replace the older ones, but at this stage, I want all the plants’ energy to go into the fruits.

Thinning parsnips

These have germinated really well on the allotment, typically much better than those I am growing at RHS Garden Wisley, and they needed

Pulling out some of the seedlings, usually along a row, so the remaining seedlings are spaced further apart. It reduces overcrowded, which can hinder their growth.

Freshly lifted parsnips from RHS Wisley in 2025 reveal the long taproots that develop beneath the soil surface over the growing season

Crop of the week: Spring onions

I direct-sowed these spring onions, a lovely and reliable cultivar called ‘White Lisbon’, earlier in the year, around March time. I have thinned them out a little since then, and it is now time to harvest. I really like the flavour and a little bit of crunch they add to summer salads, and I also enjoy cooking them into omelettes. I find them a great complement to feta cheese and pesto. They stand in the ground fairly well, and that one March sowing should keep me fed for the next month or so, but hopefully the next batch will be ready for eating by then.

Allium cepa ‘White Lisbon’ is a reliable spring onion cultivar that can be harvested over several weeks

Coming up on the plot