I am just thrilled to introduce my guest from across the ocean! My guest today is going to tell us about an app called VegPlotter! He’ll also share secrets for using those squash we all wonder what to do with to reduce weeds!!

Tell us a little about yourself.

So I live in the UK, sort of the middle of the UK, in a place called Rugby, which is where the game of Rugby came from. We moved here about 10 years ago, here I decided to get an allotment, I have had an allotment for about 3 years. I am struggling to get it in order because it’s quite large. 

30 meters by 20 meters.

That is large! A meter is about a yard, so 30 meters by 20 meters is about 30 yards by 20 yards and that’s pretty big!

only managed to turn over the soil on about 1/3 of it, the rest of lawn

that’s what

used to have chickens when I was a kid.

because I have this allotment

I was having struggle managing it, so that’s why I built the Veg Plotter app to help me manage it!

So do you want to tell everyone what the VegPlotter  is?

VegPlotter app

So it’s a website, works on a mobile, desktop, pc or mac. So it allows you to plan out your vegetable.! 

you can map out where your beds are gonna be! And your sheds and greenhouses are , your water system and cold-frames

• beds

• sheds

• greenhouses

• water

• cold-frames

Then on a month-by-month basis, your gonna map out and plan what you want to plant, so the unique thing about VegPlotter  is that it shows you whats in the garden. So as you move through the months you can see where there are gaps and you can decide to put a cover crop in, or where you could put some quick crops like radish or lettuce to fill your land so you can make the best use of your land!

Awesome! You can use it on a desktop or on your mobile! So what do you do? You enter data? From what you are planning, or a catalog? or how does it work?

You need to measure out your garden

What I suggest you do is you use a bamboo cane or if you have a long tape measure. Once you’ve got the measurement and how you want your beds, you simply 

when you open the app, you create a new plot…

It’s basically just a blank canvas where you can drag on beds, or sheds, you drag out the corners of those beds, make them the right size, then you move them into position. So in one particular month, say you move to March or April when there’s a lot of planting going on, you can move tot hose months, and drag on a 

let’s say you want to plant a

row of beets, you can quickly from the menu on the right, drag it onto your plot and put it where you want it to go, and drop it down and the plotter does is it makes out a schedule for that plant

if your planting, when you a couple of months prior when you should have sowed the seeds in your greenhouse or windowsill and when you should expect to harvest…show you that there’s space to plant else if your season allows.

I know people might be like, when am I gonna do this? I don’t need to do this because I’m out there, and this is gonna take a lot of time, but you know when this is going to help, what I see is the biggest benefit is this is gonna help with record keeping and as the years go by, you’re gonna be able to figure out when did I plant that, should I start earlier, what should I put. A lot of people talk about data is the key to success, I really think this is gonna help people really know data. I know I have bene known as a data junky at school, cause I love to analyze that, but… I think this will really help people be more effective in their garden….

say you planted cabbages, they should really go in the ground, the season after…

Brussels sprouts

they shouldn’t go in the ground

the season afterwards

if you drag out a cabbage it will tell you if you previously, so maybe you probably shouldn’t plant them, it will give you a warning. 

I love the way it’s easy to drop and drag it !

keeps an accurate record

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

I didn’t grow up in Rugby, I grew up on the south coast, in the SW part of England. There are 2 counties called Devin and Cornwall, I grew up by Devin… in a place called Totnes they call it the English Rivera, they have palm trees and such, stays quite warm don’t get quite so many frosts…

parents had quite a big garden at the back. We had a small vegetable patch, you could only have a couple of rows of lettuce and the odd few cabbage. It was enough to get us interested and the best part of it was the chickens, they would roam around the garden and they would chase the cat…

How did you learn how to garden organically?

Learning how to garden organic, basically is just me being frugal … I didn’t really grow organic until I started my allotment, one of the things when you grow organic if you buy the food in the shops it’s more expensive, if you garden organic it’s cheaper, you don’t have to buy expensive fertilizer there are 

gardening hacks

• beer traps for catching your slugs,
• netting for stopping things for getting

People on allotments, tend to garden organically. The advice is always an organic answer when you ask your neighbors, they give you natural advice.

Do you have to pay for that?

There are different models. Our allotment is probably 50 allotments on our site, it’s owned by a local charity,  a local wealthy gentleman, when he died, he left a load of land in trust to a charity as long as they make it available to local people. 

Since that day, this has been hundreds of years back, there have always been allotments on that sight, I pay 16 pounds a year which is about $25 for that size of it. There are others in the UK, pay $100 lbs for the whole year.

Allotments are a good way to start growing, and getting into gardening if you don’t have space at home. Often your family would maybe not want a vegetable garden, your family would much prefer lawn and they want to kick a football around.

If you are wanting to be having some land to grow crops….

Now how far is it from your house?

I can walk it in about 10 minutes but I can drive in just a few minutes.

Tell us about something that grew well this year.

My butternut squashes. They’re always a good one, I planted loads because I wanted to use them as a cover crop to keep weeds down… I like to use them in soups.

To keep them while I get caught up, I thought what I could do is plant some butternut squash because the leaves are quite big and they cover a lot of ground, so they would cover the smaller weeds, so any of the smaller weeds, and the self-seeded annuals would struggle to grow

And did that work?

I think so, it worked quite well, they take a lot of ground, especially, the climbing or vine based ones…bush ones maybe not so much but if you get the trailing ones train them around the actual vegetable bed. They shade the bed so the seeds don’t grow so much! It seemed to work quite well.

Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new?

I am gonna do the same thing this year because they worked so well.

I have this long term view to grow grape vines

put an apple tree in

this is the first year I have elected to grow fruit.

it was fairly pot bound…. so last year I diligently watered it so I took the fruit off so it would get established. It was in a pot before we bought it. It wasn’t pot bound strictly speaking,  tree roots tend to grow a little bit slower… especially if they’ve been in a pot for a while. Tree roots grow a little slower. 

Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season.

I probably

I’ve had a challenge this year

I planted 2 rows of beet root and 2 rows of chard, I don’t know if it was pigeons, or magpies. Basically destroyed the crops. I went on Saturday and there were 3 rows of seasons of seedlings. It was the start of the season and then I went on Sunday, they were all gone. As you can imagine I was a bit angry. There was a pigeon up in the tree, and some magpies cackling in the distance.

I usually net the brassicas. I never had that problem with the beets chard and beetroot, nor the slugs

this year for some reason, they haven’t got any of the brassicas going, I had the beets. 

Do you know did any of your neighbors in the allotment have that problem. 

No, my neighbors, they were fine, and we were chatting, there’s

Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden.

I hate mowing, I hate g

because some of my allotment is long. It’s the easiest way to keep weeds down. When I go to the garden I like to  plant things… I quite like hoeing, feel like I am moving forward…

• plant
• hoe
• be productive

Mowing just feels like I’m wasting time, I’ve only got a little push mower, what do you call it, a hand-mower not a powered one. The wheels push it, It takes about an hour, I only have so much time at the allotment, so just mowing grates on my nerves….

I have to do that

How does that work? Do you rent tools? Do you have to bring things down?

You can put whatever you like on your plot

• shed
• compost bins
• cold frames
• eventually like to have a greenhouse

I keep all of my things locked up, although most of the time it’s not locked up

use older tools so they don’t get stolen… 

I wouldn’t keep a petrol lawnmower there because it would get stolen, but I don’t worry about the push mower, no one really wants want

What is your favorite activity to do in the garden.

Relaxing of an evening, if I get time after work, quickly pop down, 1 hour 1/2 hour

no one around really relaxing chance to unwind after a bit of work, I don’t mind hoeing. 

I think my favorite activity is sitting down and having a cup of tea. 

That is absolutely allowed, siting in the garden, having coffee looking around! 

Especially when I’ve done a bed out, feel like I’ve done some work sit down have a cup of tea and relax. 

What is the best gardening advice you have ever received?

I would say, the term

little or nothing

a little bit each day, a little bit as often as you can, over time you’ll see the most progress

if you try to do everything at once, you’l hate it because your bones hurt muscles

bite

esp with the hoe, if you quickly go down for 20 minutes pick up the hoe, you can have hoed a bed and a half in that time, then it’s done and there’s no weeds in that bed and in a few days, it’s all done…admittedly you’d have to start again in a week … 

But you’d have to do it again in a week, even if you did it all in one day so you wouldn’t be so sore.

You’re not so overwhelmed it’s gonna take me hours…

A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be.

Probably would be a hoe to be honest because… The thing I’ve found, I’ve had to take over the allotment, so I spend a lot of time making new plots and so the hoe is probably the most useful

• can take over the earth
• will help you keep weeds down

One of the best tips I heard, was if you need to prepare a seed bed, rather then using a rake use a hoe because it will

• break up the soil better
• a hoe can bash the clods
• shimmy over the top, makes a better tilth over the top.

creates a special… depending on the soil you have…

A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden?

Ooooo! I like…

I’m a celiac, I can’t have any sort of bread or wheat

I love potatoes, jacket potato probably my favorite meal. One of the other ones zucchini done in garlic, fry it in pan with butter and garlic

Jacket Potato 

just a potato roasted put in the oven, skin and all, do a cross on the top, butter, cheese, baked beans…...