• July is often the busiest month of the year on allotments when many vegetables hould be at the picking  stage however it has also been the wettest july on record and this combine with lower than average sunshine has delayed the growth of many crops.

Reports have reached FEDAGA of Edinburgh allotment holders experiencing tick bites on their plot. It is important to be aware of the potential risk of Lyme Disease that may follow on from such an incident.
Lyme Disease is caused by the Borrelia bacteria and can be passed to you from mice, squirrels or birds by blood-sucking ticks. If untreated the effects can be serious.

The Show is on the 16th of September in the Southside Community Education Centre
117 Nicolson Street, Edinburgh. Details in the Show Schedule, file attached. Click below:

June is the month when vegetable growth really starts to pick up ,with the warmer weather and sun heating the soil and boosting green house temperatures.

Gardeners are being warned to wash their hands after using compost following a series of Legionella cases in Scotland over the past five years.
One man has died and five others have become ill after contracting a rare strain called 'Legionella longbeachae', which appears to come from compost.
Read more on this at the BBC website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-18206191

May is one of the busiest months on the allottment and there is a long list of vegetables to sow outside and bring on under glass.

My early potatoes suffered an early set-back at the start of May when there were some early frosts which nipped the early leaf growth as it was just peeping above the ground .I had thought about covering them over but assumed the risk of frost was over and this could wait a few days longer- how wrong could I be! Fortunately the potatoes have recovered and are now all happilly earthed up. 

FEDAGA and the City of Edinburgh Council is pleased to announce the 2012 Edinburgh in Bloom Allotments Competitions.
If you'd like to enter your own plot you will have to apply for an entry form. You can do this via the Council website: http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/info/495/parks_gardens_and_open_spaces/766/e...
All affiliated sites are automatically included in the Best Site, Most Improved Site and Most Waste Aware Site competitions. These look at the allotment site as a whole.

Early Spring marks the start of the gardening season when days become longer, and in theory the weather should start to warm up.

URGENT CALL FOR GARDENERS...
SAGE (Sow and Grow Everywhere), an offshoot of the creative group NVA have met with Grosvenor Developments on the last site to be developed on Fountainbridge North and are keen to create a mobile allotment site there.
The idea is that soil and growing medium is put into one ton builders bags and everything is grown in them. In two or three years, when the developer wants to build, the bags are transported to another site.
See: http://sowandgroweverywhere.org

Vegetable Seeds Pot Sown In March The Allotted Month – March 2012