Do you waste your plot?

Putting in overwintering crops: onions, garlic where my tatties came out.
Digging and mulching with cardboard the beds that have gone all weedy with the wet summer and hopefully.... digging over the remaining 1/4 of the plot that's been covered by black plastic all summer and making a wildlife area with pond and some more fruit trees.

I like to 'rest' my soil and give it chance to recover from the strain of supporting this years crops.

That said, some of my beds wont be empty until after Christmas because I'll leave the leeks and parsnips in situ until needed. I also have some spinach which should keep going for a while yet. These beds will be manured and dug over once empty (Jack Frost allowing).

The beds which are already empty will be having manure dug in over the next few weeks and then left until February/March time at which point I'll dig in the compost from the daleks and I'll probably throw some chicken manure pellets over them as well.

Reet
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Some have winter crops, some have green manures, some will be used to house various items just as a leaf mould bin whilst I get other beds mended and up and running, some mulched and some dug and weeded where necessary.

This winter I'm growing garlic, onions, spring onions, leeks, broad beans and spinach. Most of the rest of the plot will be dug over and mulched with manure ready to be dug-in in Spring.

2 big beds will be manured and left empty.
Parsnips,leeks and celery will be left in place until needed,overwinter onions and garlic planted in other beds, and spring veg already planted in the tunnel

I've planted self-saved garlic/Elephant garlic and some japanese onion sets, other beds will get a top dressing of manure. Broad bean Aquadulce will be planted this weekend but apart from that I won't grow anything else. Having said that, my garden has plants (mostly harvesting something edible from them) in every inch of available space (apart from a handkerchief of grass I allow OH to have)
There's nothing better than walking through the garden with my grandchildren grazing on fruits (although gooseberries this year gave them a shock).

I clicked 'several different jobs' but it makes me sound busier than I am!
I only have a tiny veg. patch & grow a lot of other things in pots & containers but even if I had a large allotment I still don't think I'd dig it over. The pots get partially emptied & topped up with fresh compost & filled with bulbs & bedding until they're needed next year. I have some permanent strawberry plants in the veg. patch but on the rest of it I tip some homemade compost onto it, lightly fork it & leave it for the worms to 'dig it in'. I then plant out some shallot sets & sometimes onion sets, sow some salad leaves or winter lettuce & take off the netting cover & replace it with a polythene cloche. If I had a large plot I think I'd consider a green manure as it seems a practical way of keeping down the weeds & then putting back some goodness into the soil.

The top bed where the tatties were is filled with about 90 savoys of 4 differnt varieties and planted at differnt times as a row of spuds were lifted.
The bottom bed were the summer veg grew will be manured and mulched with shredded paper and spent hops, then covered with cardboard for the winter.
In the runner bean canes are about 12 nice big juicy kale plants waiting for a crisp frost, and where the frech bean canes are, i have planted spring maturing purple brocolli
Lots of other jobs to do like lifting and splitting and rhubarb crowns and we will also be building more raised beds in the orchard for things like parsnips, carrots and leeks.
Plus.. we still have sit and sup tea and put the country to rights... but thats another story........................

I only have one main veg bed, and so need to use it all the time. Currently I have kale, PSB, celeriac, leeks, garlic and lettuce in it, along with some chervil and oregano which has been left to re-seed and re-grow. In my falling down side bed I only have some artichokes, partially for fear of loosing the crop as it falls through to next door.

I don't remember speaking to you Sara!

This is one of my 'Bone of contention' topics. I've even got a name for it 'The brown desert syndrome'
Why Oh why? do people pay an allotment rent for 12 months then only use their plot for five of them.........Arrrrrrghhhhh!
Must admit it's the older generation that adhere to the brown desert principles mostly on our allotment site, although young allotmenteers are sometimes indoctrinated into this evil regime.
Their plot is neatly turned over and raked to a fine tilth and they sit in there sheds or empty greenhouses (another bone of contention) weedwatching! If a weed appears they run out with their hoe and chop it off, gently smoothing the soil over so there are no blemishes on there brown desert! What a waste of money,land and resources!!!!!!

My allegience is towards 'proper' gardeners who look after the land and always try to have a crop of some description growing in every bit of space at all times. These are they guys and gals I look up to and try my very hardest to emulate. (Sadly there aren't any on our site and I am a lone cry in the wilderness!)
In fishing, there's a time in June called 'Duffers fortnight' this is when it doesn't matter what you throw at the fish they will take it. The good fishermen though are the ones that can catch fish when the duffers can't.
Its the same with vegetable gardening ( In my view of course) the good gardeners are the ones that can still grow and harvest crops in adverse growing conditions AKA Winter.

I personally still haven't quite mastered the technique but by persistance and thinking 'out of the box' I am managing to have a range of veggies growing throughout the winter.
Nature abhors a vacumn and soil would be covered naturally if we didn't tend it through the winter, so why not grow something?
I have dabbled with green manure crops but would only use them as an absolute last ditch chance to have at least something covering the soil over winter.
If I had the technical knowledge I would write a book on it as it would become an instant best seller I feel. There have been books written on winter cropping but I think they are American based and deal with a completely different climate to a good British winter.
Anyway, I'd better sign off before I blow a gasket.................

Btw........I appear to be the only one who has voted Other, in other words I will be doing everything that I have done throughout the Spring/Summer and autumn, plus loads more!

I've divided my plot into 4 main beds.
Bed 1: is full of winter brassicas
Bed 2: has a mixture of chard, parsnips, celeriac with green manure sprinkled on gaps as they appear
Bed 3: has just been weeded and sown all over with broad beans. What I don't eat will be composted as a green manure. There are also a few chinese greens & winter lettuce on it.
Bed 4: half is a fruit bed, the other half has Japanese onions & garlic on it, with green manure sprinkled in any gaps.

I shot a video y'day, if you want to see how "busy" it all is...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNxUaPfoIgs

Wow Snadger ermmmm can you tell me how and what exactly,cause I would love to try and do it. I want to grow something to eat!

Mine's about 50/50 between planted up and manured ,mulched with compost and covered .
I would like to eventually have the whole plot in production all year but having only had the plot for a year and half I'm still on a steep learning curve trying to work out so that things are rotated and there's a space for everything.........I'll get there eventually, there's already been an improvement on last winter .

I'm with snadger in believing that land should be productive. I have a garden and so don't pay allotment fees but I decided a few years ago that the conventional wisdom of double digging and leaving the plot bare over winter were not a good use of time or resources. I have a small patch with green manure on simply because I didn't have anything coming along to stick in that bit. The rest has thirteen different types of veg that are all at a stage where I can use them in a meal and I also have 50 overwintered onion sets in and two blocks of broad beans. As soon as plants are used up the area gets a thick mulch of home made compost ready to start the whole process going again next spring. Even the greenhouse has lettuce, spring onions and chard growing away and I'll bring some of the container grown veg inside if the weather gets really cold.

Funny, but I was driving past some local allotments the other day and noticed quite a few were 'brown deserts' and most of the others had just the usual sprouts and leeks with not much else. Perhaps some people only like gardening in warm sunny weather.