New allotment in London!

[buzzingtalk]

Not been on here a while, hello again everyone

Cut a long story short, i moved back to my mums in London from Norwich recently and somehow managed to blag an allotment pretty damn quick!

It's 5 rods/100sqM sort of size...with a shed that isn't a piece of tat like my old plot.

My main problem, however, is that the soil is clay I've worked with clay soil before when doing gardening jobs, however I never expected (or wanted) to take on a large bit of clay ground. There seems to be no drainage issues so far, which is great. It cracks a bit in the sun though.

Thankfully we live on the London/Essex border, and my friend works in a stable only a few miles down the road with an infinite source of horse muck. Went and got my first load today, didn't anywhere near cover the bit I wanted to...its going to take a while I think!

Any tips/ideas for clay would be gratefully received. One end seems to be much worse than the other, so I'm going to put my raised beds there, as well as sinking my blueberries in their pots into the clay soil. i need to try and level it first so I can put my beds down and sort paths out etc but its proving to be very difficult. Have dug about 1/8th of it, adding manure, so going to try and level this soon and build beds there then add lots of compost/sand/manure etc to try and air it up a bit for spring.

Either way, its exciting having a new plot and project...lovely to have something to keep me busy whilst i'm out of work!

[muddled]

Hello from SE London (also gardening on clay)

[sparrow100]

And from SW London and its clay.

While we're in soggy weather, it might help to see if there are any particularly boggy bits. Mine starts off slowly, but then floods when it's saturated and I have standing water for a few months of the year. If there's any kind of slope you might have the same. Or not.

The bottom of mine is about 7ft lower than the top, so I've stuck raised beds in, double dug those and added as much muck and leafmould as I could find. They still compact easily so regular digging's what I am going for. But then I like digging.

Good luck with it!

[snakeshack]

and from nw london,clay here too.
I think you have it right ,lots of manure and composted woodchip goes on mine to open it up and the whole thing is now raised beds.I don't really dig it in any more as it's impossible apart from the three weeks when its not too wet or too hard.I just mulch about six inches deep over cardboard on about half the plot every year and let the worms take it down over winter,some unused ground has mypex over the top

[Martin H]

Hi Buzz, London/Essex border must mean you aren't very far from me!

Don't try to dig it when it's undiggable, just spread stuff over the top, anything organic you can get hold of that isn't contaminated. I'm sure you already know, clay soil is really fertile once the air can get in so you can look forward to some good crops.

[Aberdeenplotter]

I'm going to disagree with you on that I think Martin. For me, the best advice to give to anyone on clay ground is to dig it and leave it as rough as you like. The winter frosts will then be able to do the hard work for you and break down the clods leaving a good friable mix in spring time.

p.s. to anyone unsure what friable means, it is easily crumbled

[sparrow100]

Depends how wet it is. My mate's just knadgered his, digging sopping wet woil that now looks like a cow has had a curry too many. (see other post about soil structure) My clay has a really narrow window from being sodden/flooded to being perfect and then being baked solid. It's never been friable in spring, just cold and wet. I can generally work it April-October unless it's a dry Spring. My mattock has been a godsend.

[buzzingtalk]

@Sparrow - was down there a few days ago after some particularly heavy rain - no standing water! I'm at the bottom of a very, very gradual slope too. It is certainly 'wet' but no surface water, and I still found it OK to dig when it was wet (just a bit heavy) Mine is still very workable, so I think you deffo picked a short straw there!

When I was digging yesterday, it was coming up in clumps but they were easily broken. There's been a few patches that really resemble proper clay - sticking to the spade etc - but the rest will be a season or two's hard work at best to get it workable. And it's been fairly wet recently, so my hopes are high.

So far I've dug 1/8th of it, am going back down tomorrow for a few hours to finish off the second 1/8th and spread more manure about. Will post up some pics

Have been out hunting for free wood and found some fab skips/piles that people have given me, I need more boards though so will look for reclaim yards. Have started to design the site and will begin putting in fencing for my raspberries this month...I grow a lot of soft fruit and although its happy in large pots, I'd like to get them in way before spring to get them settled.

Has anyone here buried blueberries in their pots? I'm going to put them all in massive tubs before I do it, and the main reason for burying them is to stop anyone from stealing them (not that i think they would but its possible, and they are worth a lot of cash now!)

@snakeshack - theres a pile of woodchip near the entrance of my allotment. How do you tell if it's composted however? It isn't fresh (been there since before i got my plot a few months back)

[buzzingtalk]

Just had a lovely session down the allotment - sun was shining right through until 2.30, when I mad a swift exit. Almost considered taking my jumper off haha!

First photo is the back 1/4th that's been dug, with the manure I've put on so far - am trying to put a light covering over, then will get some more and put on top.

2nd pic is what the next 1/2 looks like - the black sheeting is covering the bits i haven't dug out of the second section, will have this done in the next few days if this weather holds out!

3rd pic is the back half - looks a mess! will be constructing the bed for the compost bins to go in tomorrow hopefully...then more digging

4th pic is close up of the soil - it doesn't look too bad but don't be decieved! Its clay, but no where near as bad as some people have it.

5th pic is my wood scavenging efforts so far

[snakeshack]

woodchip thats been composted becomes darker and begins to break down into a fibrous material resembling garden compost.fresh woodchip is good for paths over cardboard/newspapr or laid on top of a good membrane like mypex,after a couple of years it will break down and can be dug into the beds and replaced with fresh on the paths.
You can also use it fresh as a mulch on your beds if you don't plan to dig (as it robs nitrogen from the soil as it rots)or mix with high nitrogen materials like fresh grass clippings/nettles and then compost in a heap.
a good source of fresh and composted woodchip is a local tree surgeon who is often glad to get shot of it for free or for a nominal delivery charge.
personally on my fruit beds I tend to pile it on up to 8 ins thick around my fruit bushes,and also use it to earth up my spuds,everything else gets a couple of inches .
Pine or conifer based chip will acidify your soil however,on the bright side though it's great for blueberries

[buzzingtalk]

I've always used it to mulch my blueberries, but never thought about using it in other ways due to me always collecting acidic stuff for my blues. Have also used it for paths...not sure what i'm going to do for paths on this plot, I'm not keen on grass as its too much work and I don't have a lawnmower/strimmer, so might go for bark paths again.

[buzzingtalk]

Double post, whoops!

[buzzingtalk]

Here's some picture updates from last week...am commencing work again tomorrow, hoping to dig over and manure the next quarter of the plot. Running out of space to dig due to having so much wood laying about haha! So will start laying out wood for raised beds, and will build them if/when the ground freezes so I have something productive to do.



First pic is the compost bin bed I built the other week...am going to build a bit ccoming from the right side of it to the end of the shed (out of shot) out of my old bed in the van - will be for piling up the mounds of weedy clay soil I've dug up and am unable to compost/do anything productive with...just need to dig the ground underneath, level it off, cut the bed frame to size and line it...will probably drive some 2x2 into the ground to hold it in place. Will be good to get the soil mounds out of the way, there's so much of it laying about and I'm loathe to move it until it's in a permanent resting place as it weighs a ton. In summer I'll be able to get it out and lay it flat so I can dry it out, shake the clay off and burn the weeds but for now its way too wet.

Second pic is the most of the bit I've dug, covered in 6" of manure/straw bedding. I've actually manured a bit more since that picture was taken. Am waiting for a family friend to come back from her travels next month, then i'll have two stables locally that can give me their manure. Am aiming to collect from my usual lot soon, their manure is much better than the stuff in the pics which was from the allotment but I was keen to just get the ground covered and give the worms something to work on whilst I collect more poo.

All in all its coming on well, I'm running out of space to dig over due to the sheer amount of wood laying about, I've piled it up neatly but it still takes over 1/4 of my plot. Going to start measuring out the raised beds for the back (manured) section and laying wood on the ground for the beds so it's out of the way and I know what bits of wood I still need to find/buy.

Days are getting longer now so more time for me to get down to the plot, particularly whilst I'm still out of work! Hopefully begin tomorrow with a final dump run, fix the guttering and downpipe into a lined bath for water storage, and a bit more digging/manuring if there's any muck about.

[buzzingtalk]

Great session today - although the ground is frozen, so no digging for now!

Pic 1 - last pile of weed clumps! woohoo
pic 2 - frame for clump bin
pic 3 - pruned back the miscellaneous shrub, weeded and mulched. Looks lovely now it's had a proper prune, just need to wait until spring/summer to find out what it is, and if it's edible. If not, it's going on the fire
Pic 4 - pallet reinforcements for clump bin

Built a frame to dump all of the top soil into for it to break down over the course of the year. Just need to buy more nails tomorrow to fix the pallets on to the front and sides, which were a late addition as I had no idea quite how much of these 'clumps' I'd already dug up! However the clump pile is now tiny and just a few bucket loads really...then time for a rake over the whole remaining site (not much), a general tidy up...going to build a bed around my water butt like I've done for the compost bins and mulch it...do a dump run and bag up remaining rubbish. And after that, there's not really much I can do until the ground thaws out a bit

Looks like it might thaw out in a few days, fingers crossed, I need to crack on with the digging!

[buzzingtalk]

Latest update - yesterday I had a fab 4 hour session, built my bed for my water butt (bath haha), did some more digging, manuring, had a bonfire, cleaned up...was great and I was feeling really motivated!