My new allotment and previous tenants

[bazzaboy]

Great posts and oh poor Jeanied and snohare, my heart bleeds, those are indeed warnings I'll heed, clearly there should be a law against couch grass! Allotment Boss is pretty knowledgeable (family farming background, works full-time in agriculture, grows veg and flowers primarily for showing with considerable success etc.) But I will indeed check first few divots carefully. Nearly midnight, I suppose it might appear somewhat eccentric to go down there now with a torch (just owls and wizards about), I'll have to wait for daybreak. This is worse than Christmas Eve when you're eight! Nite! "Make Bazza a good boy..." Decision tomorrow....

[bazzaboy]

Friday was frustrating coz it poured with rain all day making digging divots impractical... but I got down there yesterday (Saturday) afternoon. I'll do some photos 'for the record' but first impression was that it IS primarily matted grass (the odd thistle near the edges but no trace of couch, mare's tail and similar nasties... I suspect the real nasties on this site are called rabbits!) So I think ploughing would be possible but even so am inclining towards cutting beds, I think I'll feel more in control than faced with a huge mud patch. (But meantime how do I stop the grass growing, lol, King Canute "Stop! STOP!" Not sure that's gonna work...).

On a more optimistic note, some may recall a while ago some of us in the North Midlands, Yorkshire etc went off to Harlow Carr Open Day (RHS Harrogate) where they were establishing (raised, no dig) veg beds by cutting turves and stacking them upside-down to die off... These (temporarily, a year or so) made quite nice 3' benches (for viewing rabbits?)... I'm just wondering if I could do that? The topsoil seems quite deep, one slight disadvantage is I think being RHS they had about 50 volunteers to help them and I seem to be approximately 49 volunteers short... Also I'm a bit dubious about raised beds in this context as there's no running water on this site so it may be preferable to work towards flat beds. But where there's a will there's a way, d'you think in principle it should work ok? Cut and remove turves to make beds? Stack turves upside down in neat(ish) 3' benches? Shout at the remaining grass not to grow? Is that a plan, Stan? bb.

[Hazel at the Hill]

For my two penn'th, I'd not go for ploughing/rotivating even though you don't think you have any 'nasties' as you will go from a field of grass you can walk around to a field of mud that you will disappear into and never be seen again. Or end up 15' tall as you collect divots on your boots as you go.

I'd mark out and cut beds out - you have ready made paths, which is one less job to think about in the coming months.

[snohare]

At my allotment site, with only five plots, when starting up four out of five persons simply dug over the vegetation and removed the weeds; the fifth skimmed off the turves and laid them in a stack. One year on the plot which has the most weed free ground and lots of well-rotted compost...yes, you've guessed it.
The secret is to lay the turves upside down for the first layer, then the right way up for the next, then reverse for the third, reverse again, and so on. The upside down grass will die and rot; as it does so it will kill off the grass next to it. The reason you do it this way (so I was told) is that by doing this you get only a thin layer of decomposed matter every two layers, with lots of good, worm-enriched soil in between, when you come to use the pile. Of course you want to make the pile as tidy as possible, with very neat vertical edges, as that is where the grass will continue to grow, and if neat you can just slice off a wee bit and that is it gone, whereas in an untidy pile there will be a lot more of it.
Alternatively, if you have a tarpaulin, you can put that over it, and assuming it excludes the light, keeps the moisture in etc as you want in a compost heap, you will find that the grass rots down much quicker.
As for cutting the grass that is left, wearisome though it may be, it will be a damn sight easier to borrow or hire a petrol lawnmower or even a scythe for the day once every two or three months (and get a wonderful supply of hay for humus/mulch ) than to weed the wasteland of virgin soil that you have opened up to Pandora's Box...
The farmer is no doubt conditioned to thinking of "I'll get the tractor and plant that -- acres once it's ploughed" - you don't have a tractor, so you don't dare ! That is a point worth making to him.

[binley100]

For my two penn'th, I'd not go for ploughing/rotivating even though you don't think you have any 'nasties' as you will go from a field of grass you can walk around to a field of mud that you will disappear into and never be seen again. Or end up 15' tall as you collect divots on your boots as you go.

I'd mark out and cut beds out - you have ready made paths, which is one less job to think about in the coming months.

I'm with Hazel on this one. Mark out your beds and cover with cardboard or something then work on bed at a time. Lift your cover , dig it over. I use a fork to pull out the roots, then recover until ready to have another go at it. We did this with all our beds , going over each one about three times alternating the direction that we worked. Then when we planted them , did lots of weeding either by hand fork or hoe.

[bazzaboy]

Ace advice, many thanks, def will NOT plough but will cut beds and leave grass access paths... The interleaved stack detail sounds interesting, particularly if over time nature's doing the difficult job itself, thank you. If I make some headway tomorrow I'll post a photo (I'm promising that to encourage neatness!) Many thanks. bb.

[bazzaboy]

If I make some headway tomorrow I'll post a photo (I'm promising that to encourage neatness!)

Didn't realise first thing I'd need with new allotment would be night-vision goggles Beaten by rain and darkness today (thus strange pic) but made some headway (best bits were conversations with neighbouring sheep who seem to appreciate my jokes, er maybe not, and the thermos of soup I'd thought to take).

Being urged to keep a daily record of progress or otherwise on this allotment venture I've revitalised an old blog,
Bazzaboy's Fruit and Veg Blog

Many thanks for tips. bb.

[snakeshack]

wooooaah time to get mulder and scully in ,I can just make out the marks from the landing gear of a ufo.

[Jeanied]

Bazzaboy - are you a famous painter? Looks like a pointilliste at work.

[bazzaboy]

lol, thanks, the jokes keep me digging....

Could Mulder and Scully solve the rabbit problem I wonder? Details are:

Pic 1 shows how the new allotment area is adjacent to railway embankment which houses a large rabbit warren (e.g. pix 2 and 3). The embankment is securely fenced and inaccessible (pic 4) but the rabbits simply go under the fence - e.g. just along my stretch I counted TWENTY SIX access points so pointless to think of planting anything until securely fenced.

I’ve been reading up on fencing advice on this Forum and via Google: 1.5m chicken wire seems to be the ticket (max 30mm mesh, 18 gauge min). I’m specifically seeking advice, please, on best tactic at ground level where advice seems to vary: some say sink 30cms of wire INTO the soil, others saying layer 30 cms of the wire ON TOP OF the soil pointing away from the plot (i.e. the wire is bent into an L shape). The theory is that rabbits get to the fence and only then try to dig (and thankfully have never seen “The Wooden Horse” or “The Great Escape”). But there’s a big difference in labour in those two recommendations as to sink the wire will require digging a 1ft. trench round the whole perimeter (136 metres!) so the surface solution is much easier if it works. Does anyone have experience of either or both and able to advise which works best?

And of course I’m always open to other suggestions, from “Learn to shoot!” to “Buy veg from Tesco…”. Deterrents listed to date from reading include creosote, moth balls, human hair (?), male urine, stoats, weasels, buzzards, pet owl, pet eagle, dog, cat, leopard, tiger… begins to get impractical so starting with a fence.
Thanks… bb.

[binley100]

I'm wondering if those bird scarers that farmers use might work.

[bazzaboy]

... be popular at night...

[snakeshack]

I'm wondering if those bird scarers that farmers use might work.

They call them shotguns.
might be a thought eat the rabbits before they eat your veg

[Pumpkin Becki]

Crikey Bazzaboy, you could almost be on my lottie site! We're right next to a railway line, and we had to dig our plot from sheep grazing...three sheep still live in the rest of the field. One evening we took our fish and chips up to the lottie to enjoy the lovely summers evening...well, the sheep were convinced the fish and chips were for them! Thank goodness for our chickenwire rabbit fencing is all I can say!!

[bazzaboy]

Wonders will never cease, just learned (after x years) how 'multi-quote' works.... So:

We've put chicken wire round our beds and pegged it down at regular intervals. Also edged the beds with boards. So far seems to be keeping the rabbits at bay.

Good idea, b100, I think I'm going to need to separately protect each bed as well as the whole plot. Your beds seem about 5m square? Had a look at your photo-album blog (a pretty and private site with the hedges, mine's very open) and your clearing makes digging sheep pasture look rather easy, well done, major task completed.

They call them shotguns.
might be a thought eat the rabbits before they eat your veg

LOL.... people do go down there shooting early mornings and I think some have even tried lamping but without planning a major offensive it doesn't seem to have much effect, it's like a fairground with half a dozen rabbits bobbling along at any one time, take your pick!

Crikey Bazzaboy, you could almost be on my lottie site! We're right next to a railway line, and we had to dig our plot from sheep grazing...three sheep still live in the rest of the field. One evening we took our fish and chips up to the lottie to enjoy the lovely summers evening...well, the sheep were convinced the fish and chips were for them! Thank goodness for our chickenwire rabbit fencing is all I can say!!

I'm a bit familiar with the area as brought up in Thanet... So your sheep like fish and chips! As a friendly gesture I took mine some cabbage leaves from the garden yesterday but they didn't seem to think much of that (can't say I blame 'em...). So do your rabbits live "on-line" (ha! trendy rabbits)? Is the chicken-wire dug into the soil or at right angles on the surface?

Going to get some prices today from local suppliers of posts, wire etc, probably going to be cheaper to buy Kew Gardens... bb.