Just need to rant sorry in advance

[baldrick]

Good luck. Fish all of those roots out with a fork if you can. Cant believe you are allowed to burn stuff. Wish we were as our marestail problem has to be seen to be believed......which is why I never ever rotavate. A chillington hoe and a fork is more effective when you have a persistant long rooted perennial weed IMO

[Two_Sheds]

Baldrick, horsetail doesn't compete easily, so you can shade it out (with crops and/or green manures). I've beaten it into retreat at school by really close planting and pulling out every bit that does come up.

This photo is all horsetail
A year later and the same patch looks lovely: nectar bar before & after | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

We do still have horsetail coming up, esp in the decking (it's come right through the weed membrane), but it's now manageable

[baldrick]

lol, I had bags & bags of household rubbish chucked onto mine: I pulled out a length or curtain track and a whole ironing board

I am starting again with a mini plot nearer home for all the stuff that wilts or needs extra attention. Its a community garden starting from scratch on wasteland only 7m x 7m but I have had more buckets of rubble than I can count plus a wing and headlight from a car and full bricks. The bloke in the plot behind me got a full fire place with surround and blacklead pot! It is a right PITA as I wrecked my chillington hoe on the bricks but the quarry tiles are coming in handy! I only got a quarter of it done this year, dug a bit of manure in and chucked the last of the wrinkly seed taters in late. I am still harvesting them! Dont know if its coz this is fresh ground but I went with a bucket, dug 2 rows and had to use the bucket to fill my bread tray (2ft x 1ft x 10" high) heaped in the back of the van. That has filled 1 and a half hen food sacks and the bread tray is now heaped with another full load drying to fill another one and a half hen food sacks....and I still have 2 rows to dig but nowhere to dry them! Not a worm hole or a slug in sight! Amazing, and the ground is now lovely for my winter onion sets and it looks like Im doing something other than playing with my shiny tools so I will be more in the mood for a bit of archaeology on nice autumn and spring days before winter kicks in! You may want to try this approach

[Alison]

We just get the plots as is normally, mine was thigh high with weeds in some places and I found all sorts hidden amongst it all. Some good ie a row of raspberries, some not so good - anybody want half a bike? Was a bit of a pain to have to clear but worth it and it makes me proud to think me and OH did it between us. The Parish council have cleared part of one plot recently as there had been a lot of fly tipping on it, they cleared a three piece suite, several radiators, fence panels and dozens of bin bags filled with all sorts. They also found some abandonned propogation equipment which included lots of heaters and special lights. They then involved the police who did nothing but it was interesting to watch The plot is now taken over by somebody else but I've not seen any progress

[buzzingtalk]

After cutting down the 6ft brambles and couch grass, i have so far found:

rubble
whole tree trunk lengths about 2m (from a tropical indoor plant - so someone has just dumped it)
bits of wood with rusty nails
bags and bags of broken tiles and glass
a very rusty trowel that fell apart when i picked it up
LOTS of old carpet that some lazy bugger laid down then forgot about, which has taken me ages to dig out of the ground due to the couch grass getting amongst it and making it frey. It also means I am having to wrench the decomposing carpet from the thick and strong claws of weeds and brambles.
some kind of rotted down metal stuff (car alloys? oil drum? who knows, its broken into 100's of pieces)

and that is only 5m by 5m! another 35m by 5m to go

spoke to next door and they said it had been left for 4 years at least...i wish someone would come and plough it so the ground was at least a bit looser but no such thing on my plot...be greatful for the plough and get stuck in

[endymion]

bits of wood with rusty nails
bags and bags of broken tiles and glass

It sounds like our garden, full of bits of glass, broken china and zillions of rusty nails.

We've learned the hard way to always wear thick gloves when gardening, and also to make sure our tetanus is up to date.

[Nigelsmith]

Wow I kind of feel lucky after reading all your comments on here we are at the allotment early saturday morning for the new shed and will be erecting a greenhouse fun fun fun

[salome2001]

Hi we are in a similar position taking on a plot that hasn't been used in years (see other post). We inherited not only grass and nettles but reams of deteriorating black plastic (thickly meshed in the nettle/ grass roots), plenty of rusted metal (one recycling box full so far and I've dug over about 10% of the plot), a sideboard, a pile of logs (hopefully someone will be helping themselves to those for their log burner this weekend, otherwise they are going up in flames on Guy fawkes), two very overgrown rhubarb plants, a derelict greenhouse (which I will repanel in polycarbonate over winter), TWO sheds (both caked in chicken poo) and a jerry-rigged chicken run, with about 50 metres of rusting chicken wire buried about 4 inches below the ground.
Fun fun fun

[taff]

don't throw your logs out, have a look at this
it's also a good use for your thatchy stuff

[Shadylane]

I was going to say pile them in a corner for frogs to hibernate in. As a thank you they may eat your slugs

[endymion]

... a pile of logs (hopefully someone will be helping themselves to those for their log burner this weekend, otherwise they are going up in flames on Guy fawkes) ...

Yikes! I bet that pile's been earmarked by all sorts of creatures as a good place to hibernate. You might even have some slow worms or hedgehogs thinking of setting up home there, as well as loads of slug-eating-beetle larvae growing quietly in the rotting wood.

I'd agree with the others - don't burn it, maybe put it somewhere where it won't get in the way and let it get on with providing a useful local habitat for things that help gardeners.

[salome2001]

Your suggestions have some merit... now to design "logpile wildlife habitat, hopefully to be used by slug-eating hedgehogs" into my allotment plan...