Welcome to my allotment adventures

So, you may ask, why allotment ‘adventures’.  Well, I took on my allotment with no experience gardening in a sub-tropical climate and every time I plant a seed it’s a bit of an adventure to see whether it germinates, flourishes, and whether I can harvest it before the bugs do.

I live in Brisbane, Australia and have 16 square metres of allotment at Beelarong Community Farm.  Within that space I attempt to keep myself in vegetables. I was a complete novice when I took on this allotment 18 months ago as  I had only gardened in the UK, years earlier. I didn’t even recognise many of the vegetables that other allotment holders were growing.  I had to learn not only their names, and how to grow them, but what to do with them once harvested.

My allotment was mulched heavily during the summer as it’s such a challenge to keep things alive during the heat as we deal with temperatures over 30 degrees, combined with weeks of no rain, and then tropical downpours.

Now that it’s autumn in Brisbane and the temperatures will be cooling down this is a good time to start my blog as it’s the beginning of my planting season.