Beyond the job Project: To cultivate my first allotment

“Use it or lose it.” That’s what Jim, our allotment secretary, said as he handed my new plot over to me. Now I understand why. Many people take on an allotment with a utopian view of living the good life, without ever considering how much hard work they are.

The opportunity to grow a plentiful supply of fruit and vegetables for almost nothing often makes people blind to how many days are needed to turn over soil, toil and weed before the long-awaited harvest. I too fell into this trap.

At first, I was full of ideas. I was going to grow practically every fruit and vegetable known to man. I managed to grow a number of things, but a large part of the allotment became overgrown, mainly through a lack of planning. It is remarkable how quickly a plot can succumb to weeds if left to its own devices for two weeks.

Lessons learned

Despite the setback of my first year, I was determined to continue with the allotment. Having moved into a new home with a greenhouse, I had even more of an incentive. Learning from the mistakes of the year before, I started to plan the things I wanted to grow in a simple spreadsheet, noting the respective tasks and dates to keep track of things.

As the number of tasks on the spreadsheet continued to grow – almost at the same rate as the weeds – it dawned on me that I should be applying project management principles to make the best use of the plot. The more I considered it, and as I started to equate aspects of it to elements of project management, the more obvious it became. 

My veggie Gantt chart

There are plenty of individual projects that sit alongside the programme of providing homegrown food. For example, there’s repairing the fence, making a compost bin and eventually building a shed. Each fruit or vegetable effectively has its own work breakdown structure: purchase the seeds, prepare the soil, sow, plant out, prune, weed, water and harvest, to name a few. All these tasks have to be completed within a certain window, with enough float to account for the dynamic uncertainty that is the weather.

The number of tasks for each crop, along with the requirement that they should be performed within a certain window, meant that a Gantt chart became as indispensable as the fork or trowel. When rain (or the lack thereof) prevents one task from being completed, it’s very useful to be able to identify what should be done instead. With appropriate planning and the ability to track against a schedule, it has become far easier to keep the weeds at bay and ensure that things get planted in time.

Not content with simply scheduling the work, I decided to apply a similar approach to risk. What risks are there in planting a few seeds and growing a few vegetables? Unfortunately, fruit and vegetables can fall victim to insects, pests and diseases, all of which can be heartbreaking if you’ve spent the past few months (or more) investing time and effort in cultivating a crop. The problem is that there’s so many risks. The causes are numerous, the conditions are plenty and the symptoms are many.

Keeping track

I held no hope of remembering them all, so just as I had scheduled the things I wanted to grow, I compiled a risk register to help me throughout the year. It wasn’t particularly onerous, as most of the information can be copied and pasted from sources online, but I formatted it in such a way that it helps to identify risks specific to each month and the items that I’m growing. I’m learning as I go along, but now I can simply filter those risks that are relevant and mitigate accordingly, again saving time and wasted labour.

Some might say that applying so much effort to what should be a leisurely activity must surely take the fun out of it. The truth is that applying these methods has helped me continue with the plot where otherwise I might have had to give it up. Most of the project management activities took place in the winter when there is less work to be done, and it is definitely worth it when the benefits come through!

The experience has also led to another effort towards living the good life. We now keep chickens and enjoy fresh eggs, along with what we grow on the allotment and in the greenhouse.

Despite it being hard work and there being much more to do, I intend to continue with the allotment, even though I will soon have a lot less free time as my partner and I are expecting our first child in November. But who knows? If our baby grows up to enjoy it as much as I do, I can start thinking about resource allocation!