My Allotment's Work In Progress

Following on from my garden's working progress thread and the frustration I was having with such a small vegetable patch in my own garden, I decided it was time to sign up for an allotment. That was april time and last week I recieved word that a plot 8 rods size was available.

I was reluctant to take on another project at first, as I imagined I would need to build a new shed etc for it and wondered if the plot was too large for my needs anyway but I was persuaded to have a look at it anyway. What I saw was this. (Excuse the finger)









When I saw that there was a shed already there and a large amount of fruiting canes I decided to take the plot on. Most the weeds seemed to have grown over weed supressing membrane which had been laid over by the previous occupant. So I pressumed that I would just need to remove these quite easily and then dig over the remaining beds.

I took Mr Jane up with me the next day to inspect the shed and he said apart from the roof needing replacing the whole lot was in prety good nick.

While there I also discovered, along with the Rspbery Canes, 3 rhubarb crowns, 7 well established Strawberry plants and a cultivated Blackberry and Gooseberry bush.

 

Day 1 of clearing the plot My aim was to do at least 4 hours a week clearing it. So I began with trying to take up the weeds growing on and between the membrane. To my horror I quickly discovered that the weeds had somehow broke through the membrane and had rooted into the ground. I got a few out, much to the protest of my back.

This how it looked when I finished after day one. It looks like I haven't done much but it's because I struggled with trying to get these weeds out.



Still pretty untidy over here

 

Day 2 of clearing and I decided I would take it a little easier today and just make the plot look slightly more tidier. Thankfully my predecessor had left a pair of shears behind and a rake and so I thought I would simply concentrate on hacking back all the long grass and weeds. It seems to have made a big difference as I can take stock of what I got. At this point I discovered another 3 blackthorn shrubs while hacking back the grass.







As I was now accumilating a vast amount of waste I decided it was time to throw together a compost bin of some sorts and began filling it. I reckon I will have to make another 2 of them to take the amount of waste I will be creating in the end.

 

Pulling the roots through the holes is likely to damage the membrane. I peel it back, roughly chop with a spade then use a wood saw (old one because of stones amongst the roots) to sever the roots just under the membrane so the top growth then just falls away from it.

 

Buying the weed killer today, hopefully.

From what I gather the guy who owned it before me was expecting a baby so he may have covered a lot of it up with the black stuff with the intention of going back to it once things had settled down.

I sit on the fence when it comes to membrane. At this point in time it is useful as I can peel it back bit by bit when I am ready to take on a new bit etc. Also It seems to be working very well around the raspberry canes at supressing the weeds and suckers. But I will be removing this in the winter time as it's all a bit disorganised for my liking.

But it is an eyesore to look at and part of me is contemplating replacing the paths with lawns once I work out what lawn mower to get. Basically I want a push along mower that can cope with long grass and rough ground and not be expensive or worth nicking. I'm sure this magical cheap mower doesn't exist.

 

Surely that will get nicked too though....

 

Weedkiller doesn't kill weed seeds.

That membrane might have been put down by the last tenant after things got out of hand, or perhaps the tenant before that let the plot become overgrown and weeds seeded over it creating a massive seedbank that will create loads of work if uncovered. It might be worthwhile delving into the plot's history a little.

 

I've seen far too many new allotment tenants think they can simply spray out the weeds with weedkiller and that will be the end of the problem, but then find they need to spend increasingly further days/evenings furiously hoeing away at weed seedlings amongst their crop as spraying out is no longer an option once you've got crops planted.

I only expose such weed seed ridden plots for potato growing, or a brief period of solarisation under clear plastic sheet. Planting through X cuts in membrane laid over weed infested soil really cuts down work.

I've been doing this (mulching) for about 20 years or so and have watched non-mulchers fail one after another as their re-emerging weed seedlings stifle their crops. Then their weed blown seeds infect everybody else's crops/plots.

 

Considering it's so late in the season though. Surely that does not apply to me? I do agree that I will have to do lots of digging at a point but I won't have to be hoeing around crops as I have none. Or would you say I would be fighting a losing battle from the word go by using weedkiller?

I am hoping to use this membrane stuff around my fruit trees etc but I've been told by a few other holders that the membrane holds a lot of slugs underneath it, which will also cause problems for me. Feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place here.

 

But if there's a seed bank of weed seeds in your soil they will germinate in the spring and if it's wet it'll be difficult to clear them, unless re-weedkillering. It just seemed easier to leave it down. Push some small squares of plastic/Mypex under any holes in it to blank them off.

Never seen any slugs when lifting it and all the slug trails on top of the membrane come from the beyond it, rather than from the holes stuff is growing out of.

I seem to recall somebody on GC a while ago being told something like that ground under Mypex goes all dry and sour - was it the same people saying that? (under my Mypex left down over winter was so wet this year that it delayed planting out through it and even then the holes filled with water before I could get the plants in them).

 

But supposing I want to make more beds and reveal some of the soil that has been prevoiusly covered up. What would you suggest I do?

It was my plot neighbour who said this when I met him last week. I'm not used to dealing with this stuff so I take everything everyone has said about it seroiusly.