Waterlogged allotment

[juslh]

I am at the lower end of an allotment site that slopes gently down and it gets a bit waterlogged in the winter every year. But this year it seems so much worse and for longer! I am not an expert, so could anyone advise what I could consider planting and what to not even think about until it has dried out a little! Also, will it kill my rhubarb? Its in a puddle at the moment

[nickdub]

rhubarb will be fine I think

I wouldn't advise planting or sowing anything in the ground now with the possible exception of potatoes - they may be big enough to take care of themselves (someone-else will correct me if I'm wring about that)

You can of course sow all sorts of things in containers with a view to planting them out later - I use the plastic flower troughs for starting peas in for example, while others use lengths of guttering.

[jackarmy]

Have you thought about raised beds Juslh ?

[WeeGarden]

Just tagging on to this thread as I too have a very waterlogged allotment. Is it really ok to plant potatoes in the squelchy ground? I went there today to plant them but decided not too because it was so wet.

Juslh - I've been advised to dig some drainage in, but have no idea where to start though!

[Baldy]

^^^ probably will depend on your soil type - mine is hrrm, hard to describe - anyhow its soaked at the surface but a spits depth down its just very moist - I'm at the top of a slightly sloping site so may benefit from that - having said that I put one bag of 1st earlies in a couple of days ago but have held off planting the rest.
Plotholders near the bottom of my site have dug in field trenches that have helped them - the following link is quite educational but possibly a little over the top for most

https://sharpenyourspades.com/2016/1...ged-allotment/

[nickdub]

Just tagging on to this thread as I too have a very waterlogged allotment. Is it really ok to plant potatoes in the squelchy ground? I went there today to plant them but decided not too because it was so wet.

Juslh - I've been advised to dig some drainage in, but have no idea where to start though!

First off I don't consider myself any sort of an expert on this, as my ground is extremely free draining.

Secondly I'm generally pretty lazy and cautious, so I'd just leave it for a bit and see how the ground looked in a few weeks time, if I was in your predicament.

But if you are desperate to get some spuds in I reckon if you ridge up the soil along a line to make as sort of peaked bed, put the spuds on top of that, then cover them with whatever you have in terms of compost etc that you'd probably find it worked out OK.

BTW its nearly impossible to drain a plot on a garden scale. The reason being you normally have to divert the water before it arrives in the area, which would involve digging through the neighbours's garden, surrounding roads etc to get the job done. The usual answer is growing plants that can stand waterlogged and/or raised beds.

[bikermike]

Speaking as someone at the bottom end of a sloping site on clay, I can certainly say I'm an expert on sogginess...

Rhubarb will be fine. I think pretty much everyone in our site has rhubarb at the soggy end of their plots. (or possibly it's grown as an attack vegetable to deter burglars...)

You will be very unlikely to be able to drain your plot on it's own. What we have is a set of linked trenches at the lower ends of our plots (with pipes under the paths), and that drains out to a culvert at the end of the site. Is that something you could look at? (with cooperation of all your downhill neighbours...
Raised beds are the main answer, and just being aware that some bits will be drained later than others.

there's always rice of course...

[nickdub]

You will be very unlikely to be able to drain your plot on it's own. What we have is a set of linked trenches at the lower ends of our plots (with pipes under the paths), and that drains out to a culvert at the end of the site. Is that something you could look at? (with cooperation of all your downhill neighbours...

Actually on a farm scale land drains are always done on the top side of a boggy bit of ground. I know it sounds a bit arse-backwards to start from the high end, but the logic is to make a ditch across the slope there in order to divert the water part way up the slope, and so prevent the run-off ever reaching the lower section.

[bikermike]

I did not know that... but you've still got to get it away from there. unlike on a farm where you can generally just spread it a bit further over, the neighbouring gardens won't be too pleased if you flood them. (unless you can do it sneakily...)

[nickdub]

Yep, dependent entirely on the lay of the land of course - in some cases the drains could be run in to streams or rivers, in others there was often a central pond that drains fed in to. In the days of mixed farming, now mostly long gone, farmers werne't averse to having a pond, as it meant somewhere for the cattle to drink from and a bit of rough duck shooting in the winter if big enough.

[bikermike]

Indeed.
Overall the basic options for a soggy plot are
1) live with it, buy taller wellies, build raised beds, accept the downhill end will only be usable later in the year; or
2) drain it, but bear in mind once you've collected it, it needs to go somewhere. We have a pond on our allotment (well, we did, it needs re-lining, the Treasurer has gracefully offered that I could feel free to do it had I any spare time...), which takes some. If you just collect it and dump it on the next plot that would seem to be bad form, so you'd need to get it all the way out of the site. You may find you then run into discharge permit requirements if there isn't something there already.

[WeeGarden]

^^^ probably will depend on your soil type - mine is hrrm, hard to describe - anyhow its soaked at the surface but a spits depth down its just very moist - I'm at the top of a slightly sloping site so may benefit from that - having said that I put one bag of 1st earlies in a couple of days ago but have held off planting the rest.
Plotholders near the bottom of my site have dug in field trenches that have helped them - the following link is quite educational but possibly a little over the top for most

https://sharpenyourspades.com/2016/1...ged-allotment/

The site is new allotments in a housing estate, the developers have dig down to clay subsoil and dumped 4" of compost on top. That's it. I dug down the paths and piled the compost on top of some beds, so the paths are puddles and the beds are squelchy despite them being 5-6" above subsoil. Anyway, thanks for the advice, I think I might wait another week or two before I put them in. Chucked a few first earlies into potato planter sacks in greenhouse to get an earlier crop.

[nickdub]

The site is new allotments in a housing estate, the developers have dig down to clay subsoil and dumped 4" of compost on top. That's it. I dug down the paths and piled the compost on top of some beds, so the paths are puddles and the beds are squelchy despite them being 5-6" above subsoil. Anyway, thanks for the advice, I think I might wait another week or two before I put them in. Chucked a few first earlies into potato planter sacks in greenhouse to get an earlier crop.

Best advice I can give in those circs is to wait until it dries out a bit, as you already plan to - then for any spare bits of ground put in some grass seed or wild-bird mixed seeds spread broadcast - the soil structure will be wrecked or non-existent following the builders' activity, so top-priority is to get some plant roots back down into it to re-establish something more like proper soil.

For spots where you are growing things, either a trench or a hole filled with compost and/or manure will be vital for a lot of plants to give them a chance.

[bobbin]

Our allotments slope too. I'm on the bottom of the slope. All around my plot gets boggy and muddy.
I mean super muddy. However I've raised beds and they are absolutely fine. I've still got standing water on the membrane covering the paths in between and on bare ground where I've one or two shrubs.
Honestly I cannot recommend raised beds enough. They don't get waterlogged. Very easy to weed and maintain.Easy to cast green crops or treat soil areas for different crop needs. Neat and organised. Not quite as vulnerable to some pests as you can treat a contained area more easily. Though blasted cats think it's a big litter tray! It doesn't take many days of better weather to improve the ground so don't despair. But do consider raised beds.

[nickdub]

I've had problems with cats at times too - usually rolling around on the nice fine soil where my seedling were coming through. What I did was to save some prickly hedge cutting like sloe and hawthorn, then chop it in to lengths and scatter it on the soil where I didn't want them lying down.