Liz’s allotment life: Growing for self sufficiency

Welcome to the first instalment of Liz’s Allotment Life, a weekly diary from RHS Wisley Edibles Expert Liz Mooney. Each week, Liz shares what she’s sowing, growing, harvesting and eating as she works towards homegrown self-sufficiency.

Whether you’re nurturing an established allotment, growing in a few raised beds or just starting out, join Liz as she follows the seasonal rhythm of growing food with successes, challenges and occasional surprises along the way.

This weekend was a little quieter than planned, mainly because of a temporary lack of water on our allotment site. It should be resolved soon, so I’ve simply delayed a few seed sowings by a week. At this stage in the season, that shouldn’t cause any real setbacks.

There were still plenty of jobs to get on with.

Planting early potatoes

Early April is a good time to get potatoes in the ground, and I’ve gone for a mix of first and second earlies, including ‘Charlotte’ and ‘Rocket’. These earlier cultivars should crop before the main blight period later in summer, helping to reduce the risk of losing the harvest.

I plant them in holes around 10–15cm deep. On lighter soils, planting slightly deeper can help retain moisture around the developing plants as the season warms up.

Potatoes are a relatively low-maintenance crop, but they’re a staple for me from June onwards. There’s nothing quite like digging up the first new potatoes of the season and taking them straight to the kitchen.

Staying on top of weeds

There isn’t too much weeding to do yet, but I like to stay on top of it by regularly hoeing

Hoes are multi-purpose tools for weeding (especially between rows of veg), loosening the soil surface, making seed drills, earthing up plants, and more. There are various types with different shaped blades. Hoeing to remove weeds is best done on a warm, dry day, so you slice easily through weed stems just below the surface.

the soil surface.

At this stage, most weeds are still at the seedling stage, so a quick pass with a hoe on a dry day is often enough to knock them back before they become established. I tend to use a push-pull hoe, which I find particularly efficient for covering larger areas quickly.

Caring for seedlings

The seedlings

A seedling is a young plant grown from seed.

in my grow hut needed a light watering, which I had to bring from home while the allotment water supply was unavailable. The beetroot, spinach, lettuce and other salad crops I sowed a few weeks ago are germinating well.

At this stage, it’s important not to overwater. Keeping the compost

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.

just moist, rather than saturated, helps encourage healthy root development.

Lettuce seedlings on Liz's allotment

Thinning lettuce

The lettuce I sowed outdoors a few weeks ago is coming along well and needed thinning

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.

. Removing some of the seedlings gives the remaining plants enough space and light to develop properly and helps prevent overcrowding.

I also had to remove a few volunteer potatoes that had sprouted from tubers missed during last year’s harvest. A local mole has been causing a bit of disruption too, so there’s certainly plenty happening below ground!

We’re now well into the hungry gap – that period in spring when stored crops are running low and the new season’s harvests haven’t quite got going.

My stored potatoes and parsnips have now run out. These form much of my carbohydrate crops for most of the year, so April and May are a bit of an adjustment and I tend to rely more on pasta and rice for a while.

Thankfully, perennial

Perennials are plants that live for multiple years. They come in all shapes and sizes and fill our gardens with colourful flowers and ornamental foliage. Many are hardy and can survive outdoors all year round, while less hardy types need protection over winter. The term herbaceous perennial is used to describe long-lived plants without a permanent woody structure (they die back to ground level each autumn), distinguishing them from trees, shrubs and sub-shrubs.

crops are starting to come into their own. Because they’re already established in the ground, they can provide some of the earliest harvests of the year, often before many annual crops are ready.

At the moment, I’m enjoying:

• salad burnet
• garlic chives
• chives
• the first asparagus
• lovage

Perennial crops are well worth including if you have the space. Once established, many require relatively little input and can provide reliable harvests year after year.

Salad burnet isn’t as widely grown as it deserves to be, but it’s a really useful addition to the plot.

It produces fresh, cucumber-flavoured leaves that are perfect for salads at this time of year. As a perennial

Perennials are plants that live for multiple years. They come in all shapes and sizes and fill our gardens with colourful flowers and ornamental foliage. Many are hardy and can survive outdoors all year round, while less hardy types need protection over winter. The term herbaceous perennial is used to describe long-lived plants without a permanent woody structure (they die back to ground level each autumn), distinguishing them from trees, shrubs and sub-shrubs.

, it comes back year after year without needing to be resown, and can tolerate poorer soils and relatively dry conditions.

Later in the season, it produces flowers that provide food for pollinators and other beneficial insects, making it a useful plant for both the kitchen and the wider biodiversity

The variety of living organisms (plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms) in a particular environment. Boosting the biodiversity of your garden has many benefits, including supporting wildlife, improving soil health and reducing the likelihood of pest and disease problems.

of the plot.

For me, it’s a great example of why perennial crops are so valuable when you’re trying to grow more of your own food: once established, they can provide food with relatively little annual input.

Next weekend, I’m hoping to make a big push on seed sowing as soil conditions continue to improve.

I’ll share what’s going in, what I’m growing in the grow hut and how everything is progressing as the season gets properly under way.