Our Allotment - Guidance Sought Please

[binley100]

You have made a start thats the main thing. I know of others who have had their plot covered for about a year before growing anything . Cut holes in your cardboard and plant through .I'm struggling with weeds as well at the moment cos mine was bad when I took it on last year and although I've got beds the weeds round the edges are horrendous and you should see the plot next to me ........the committee isn't Draconian and understand the work involved when someone takes on an overgrown plot . You'll be fine

[Helgalush]

We took over a half plot at the beginning of April. It was the back half of a 10 rod plot 50% had been cultivated previously but was covered in weeds and around 60 clumps of foxgloves. The second half seems to have been used for several compost piles. We have done a lot of digging out as there was rubbish buried and also loads of plastic bags - why we don't know, perhaps to keep the weeds down?. Because some of them have disintegrated we have spent the last week building raised beds and have bought in 1000 kgs of top soil costing around £40. We have filled a composter made out of pallets with clumps of grass and we have rotavated twice (OH got a 30 year old rotavator going - boys toys). So far we have planted a lot of spuds, runner beans, mange tout, peas, courgettes, spinach, swiss chard and also made a raspberry bed. 50% of the plot is covered in plastic and last week while OH was building the raised beds I uncovered the plastic and dug out the anaemic spindly weeds growing underneath. At home I have lots of squash and other seedlings (brassicas) ready to be planted out but it all takes time and if you have not been well just do a little bit at a time. Even after rotavating, hoeing and hand weeding seems to be keeping our weeds down and it did transform the site. I am also using cardboard. I plan to have a herb bed and am growing stuff in pots at home and I'm also going to be growing more types of beans sown directly. We made a conscious effort to try and get some veggies growing as soon as we could and this is a great incentive but there is always next year! Good luck, try and be positive and don't be too concerned about the other people on your allotment as everyone knows it is hard at first to get things going.

Thank you for the inspiring post, it sounds like you have done great work with your plot, well done. I think like you say we just need to keep doing it little and often now and hopefully it won't feel like too long before we start to make some real progress.

Could I ask where you got your topsoil from?

[alldigging]

Look for turf, top soil suppliers in the yellow pages and do a search online for "top soil your area"
Ring and get prices.

It cost us £26 a ton including delivery when we got 5 tons - but you don't need to buy top soil - just use what you have and start composting.
Get some well rotted horse muck - ask at allotment what suppliers they use for things as they will know

[Helgalush]

Potatoes are brilliant at breaking up soil. Shove some in wherever you can. You're not really looking for a crop, but that would be a bonus. It will look as if you're doing something, plenty of foliage and, if you can "earth" them up with straw - that's what I do. Its easy, not at all labour intensive and you'll end up with better soil for planting up next year.

Oh ok brilliant, can I still get potatoes for planting now? I thought I had missed the boat for this year Great ideas everyone thank you.

You have made a start thats the main thing. I know of others who have had their plot covered for about a year before growing anything . Cut holes in your cardboard and plant through .I'm struggling with weeds as well at the moment cos mine was bad when I took it on last year and although I've got beds the weeds round the edges are horrendous and you should see the plot next to me ........the committee isn't Draconian and understand the work involved when someone takes on an overgrown plot . You'll be fine

Thank you Jo for the encouragement Planting through the cardboard is a good idea too. I'm feeling much better about it now, lets hope there is now a good dry spell so that we can get up more regularly to get it ticking over well.

I am so glad I posted this thread, thanks for the advice everyone.

[Helgalush]

Look for turf, top soil suppliers in the yellow pages and do a search online for "top soil your area"
Ring and get prices.

It cost us £26 a ton including delivery when we got 5 tons - but you don't need to buy top soil - just use what you have and start composting.
Get some well rotted horse muck - ask at allotment what suppliers they use for things as they will know

Okey doke, thank you. We do have a substantial supply of rabbit waste, as we have 6 rabbits of our own, would that work instead of horse manure do you think? Applied directly to the ground I mean.

[alldigging]

Your rabbit waste probably needs to rot down a bit if you want to plant straight into it. How wet is it?

You could certainly just it as a layer in a lasagna bed - or inside a cut and fold lazy bed (like a wrap - two edges turned in on a central section) now though.

[binley100]

If you are planting through cardboard you don't need to manure the whole area. For my squashes I cut a hole dug out some of the soil and removed the weeds. Chucked in some compost then mounded the soil back on top and planted into that.
If you go to the middle carpark there's a vacant bit of land which is used as a green waste dump . We get bark chippings, grass cuttings and leaves dropped there. You have to keep a look out as stuff can disappear pretty quick tho'.

[Helgalush]

Your rabbit waste probably needs to rot down a bit. How wet is it?

You could certainly just it as a layer in a lasagna bed - or inside a cut and fold lazy bed (like a wrap - two edges turned in on a central section) now though.

Not very wet, their poops are usually quite dry, and their litter trays also contain hay and litter called Megazorb which is paper-based and compostable - thats the only bit thats usually wet Sorry if too much info!

I'll look up lasagna beds, thank you.

[Helgalush]

If you are planting through cardboard you don't need to manure the whole area. For my squashes I cut a hole dug out some of the soil and removed the weeds. Chucked in some compost then mounded the soil back on top and planted into that.
If you go to the middle carpark there's a vacant bit of land which is used as a green waste dump . We get bark chippings, grass cuttings and leaves dropped there. You have to keep a look out as stuff can disappear pretty quick tho'.

Ah ok, that is very handy to know, I didnt realise that was there, we will have to head up and check it out. Great tip for the squash too.

[veggiechicken]

Re potatoes, If there aren't any seed potatoes being sold off cheaply, use supermarket ones that are shooting. Anything really just to break up the soil.

[Helgalush]

Re potatoes, If there aren't any seed potatoes being sold off cheaply, use supermarket ones that are shooting. Anything really just to break up the soil.

Aha I see, will do that then. Thanks.

[alldigging]

Not very wet, their poops are usually quite dry, and their litter trays also contain hay and litter called Megazorb which is paper-based and compostable - thats the only bit thats usually wet Sorry if too much info!

I'll look up lasagna beds, thank you.

That's about how I imagine it.

Get grass cuttings and other green waste for layers for lasagna beds
Or soak rabbit stuff and hide it under cardboard or soil

[Helgalush]

That's about how I imagine it.

Get grass cuttings and other green waste for layers for lasagna beds
Or soak rabbit stuff and hide it under cardboard or soil

Great, will do thank you.

[Two_Sheds]

what is the easiest way of getting the soil really really loose ready for planting in

Soil really doesn't need to be loose to plant.

No, it really doesn't. All you have to do is dig the hole you need for your plant. Add some well-rotted garden compost to the hole if you have some, if not no worries.

Over time, your whole plot will have been dug, with hardly any effort (as compared to digging the whole plot over & over)

[Kaiya]

One of the old boys came up for a chat yesterday; he was wondering what my cardboard and grass clipping mulched bed was for - it was actually for suppressing a couch grass infestation - it irritatingly invades from the main paths surrounding the plot. I spoke to him about having only one day a week for the plot (it's only a 1/5-1/4 plot but still seems a lot for me alone on one day!) and constantly fighting weeds, and I liked his reply - "you know what they say, if you can grow weeds, you can grow anything!"

I don't dig - weeding, planting, harvesting and not walking on the beds (really important) is digging enough and seems to result in a nice depth of easy soil, and the mulching has and will improve it further. I had a bad year my first year - half the plot went fallow, with thousands of marigolds. They all went to seed. Now of course they are all germinating. However pulling them up is easy, they form a good mulch, and they are slow (compared to groundsel and that little grass species) to seed, so I'm keeping on top of them. Plus there are so many thousands of seedlings they crowd themselves out I chuck most weeds on top of the mulch. If they re-root, I pull them up again. Eventually they die. Couch, bindweed, dandelions (because of their roots) and groundsel (because of it's seed heads), get either dessicated on my membrane paths or taken home to go into council waste.

I'm also impressed with the mulching effect on compacted ground - I rearranged my beds this spring, so that what was a hard old grass path became parts of beds. I didn't even turn the turf, I just covered it in damp cardboard and chucked horse bedding/compost/soil on top to a depth of approx 4 inches or so. It's already becoming less compacted under there, and the plants on top don't seem to notice it. In some places, I can't tell where the path even was. Very impressed.

Good luck!