We are lucky enough to have just purchased a VW Campervan – it needs a bit of restoration as it is just an empty shell the moment. So it’s not yet ideal for camping but what IT IS ideal for is carting around a load of allotment stuff.
We have a few problems at our plot. Mostly with the ground. Its super compact. Get’s REALLY wet as we are the lowest allotment on our row. And we keep walking on it – more our problem than the plots I suppose.
When we first got our allotment being the novices that we were (well – and still are!) we just dug one massive bed not really thinking too much about where we were going to walk and how easy it would be for us to reach everything. So we made a plan this year to make some raised beds – inside our raised bed. And we have used pallet sides to do this.
Good things about pallet sides :
They are free.
They are the perfect size.
They do not need any assembly.
They just stack on top of each other.
They are perfect for ‘earthing up’ which potatoes etc.
They look nice. (We think so anyway).
They are easy to move if you need to.
We have 5 pallet side raise beds. One in each corner and one in the center. This has left us with a fair amount of room either side for us to build our cane structures for all our beans, peas, and climbing squashes. We have filled them with a mixture of rotted compost, manure, leaf mould and soil.
We are hoping that using the pallet sides will help with the drainage. We are also hoping we won’t have to dig these as once we have grown in them as we are just going to green manure over the top and employ the ‘natural no dig way.’ (Which I need to read some more about).
The one in the center is used for carrots and is built 3 pallet sides high. We have done this so that the carrots are high enough off the ground to protect them from carrot fly. One we have used for potatoes and have just started off with one pallet side and are going to add pallet sides as we ‘earth up’ with the potatoes.
They are quite small – 1m x 1.5m so they are ridiculously easy to manage & keeping on top of the weeds isn’t a problem in such a small area.
The Hopeful Plot. 
I have thought about using a larger 5×5 one that my dad has in his yard, maybe fir growing roots in. I’ve sown some carrots a few days back so I’ll see how the down carrots do and then maybe if they fail move them over a pallet set up. Nice plot and blog !
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Cool! Yeah I think that the pallet sides are good for doing carrots etc because we just sieved all the soil in so it’s super fine. Hopefully we’ll get some nice long carrots. But we shall see.
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Great thinking.
No drainage on the site?
On the plot?
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None. We’re in a bit of a dip and when it rains it washes off the road into the allotments. Washes everyone’s top soil off and it all ends up outside our gate.
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Ouch!
So raised beds are a super solution then!
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