What have I done ?????????

I've been to look at my new allotment this morning in the " light of day ", as a builder used to dealing with what initially appear to be mammoth tasks I usually see some order to the chaos but not this time!!! I approach tasks of this nature with the attitude of " If I had to eat an elephant how would I do it .......a bit at a time. Well this is looking like a herd....what have I done? Four years of neglect and knee high weeds hiding untold discarded rubbish. I'ts not all bad though we have an apple tree,some strawberries hiding in the nettles some raspberry canes a huge rhubarb trifid type plant , the water point is at the bottom of the garden so don't need to carry it far. The gardens around us that have been tended look really well and the garden next to ours has been worked since April this year and was as bad as ours when the lady and her husband took it on .So any help from you experts will be very welcome, thanks for the advice so far .

 

Thanks John, We have some marrow seeds from my daughter ,my wife put beans in plastic cups a few weeks ago but she sowed broad beans not runners ( we don't like broad beans ,we heard that if you don't cook them long enough they are poisonous so my wife won't eat them ) so maybe we could trade with someone near to us for something else.

Tonyone

 

Thanks for the reply Alice, you seem to have misread my post though, the garden is new to me , the neglect is down to the previous person , why the powers that be allow people to have a plot for so long whilst neglecting it is beyond me. but while ever they pay there £15 I suppose the committee have to give a chance to plant it out . Although with a waiting list of up to 2years they could sort it out sooner wouldn't you think?

 

Its stopped raining and my wife says I won't get the garden sorted if I sit playing on the computer all day so have to get something done .

 

If a whole allotment is looking like too much, why not get a friend involved to either help out, or to take on half of it?

 

spray the whole area with roundup, wait a week and rotovate in. Get to know your fellow allotmenters and scronge what should be going in now - Brussels, Broccoli, Leeks etc as most people grow more than they need. You will also need their advice.

You can sow the quick growing salad stuff yourself.

Dont know what you are worried about.

 

Tear out what weeds you can, but don't worry about being too thorough, dig it over (the hire of a rotorvator will be a godsend), then plant it out with potatoes. Spuds are excellent at weed suppression and also break up the ground very well. After you've got your crop of spuds out it will be much easier to dig over again, and pick out any remaining weed roots.

 

I agree with most of the above. But I'd go for a treatment of Roundup and then when the top growth is dead go over with a flame gun before rotavating. That way you'll incinerate a lot of the weed seeds that would otherwise get dug in only to reappear later. Spuds, as Clueless says are a good first crop for clearing weeds and preparing soil.
Another thing that would help you conquer the weeds is to put down a membrane and grow leeks, brassicas etc through that.

 

Thanks for all the replies , she who must be obeyed is no longer in nag mode so can play again . Been chatting to some of the other lotties and it seems I have opened a can of worms with the weedkiller rotavator idea. Worries concerning weedkiller blowing onto neighbours gardens and stalwarts of the spade and hand weed brigade denouncing the use of the rotavator as the devils work. They hold fast to the belief that rotorvators chop up marestail and other weeds into squillions of small pieces which then come back with a vengeance.Seems whichever means I choose to clear the weeds I am going to alienate some of the other lotties before I even start.

 

Rotavators are the devil regarding bindweed apparently.

 

"They hold fast to the belief that rotorvators chop up marestail and other weeds into squillions of small pieces which then come back with a vengeance"

That is true, but it gets the land open, and workable. You need a plan for dealing with the weeds that will come up, but at least you will have made it workable.

Covering the plot in black plastic, and planting through it (e.g. into "pits" of manure that you create before putting plastic down) is a get-going-quick method many people have adopted.

Generally they only grow Pumpkins, Squash, Marrows, Courgettes and the like in the first year ... clear the rubbish (mow / strim / etc.), spread manure over the whole site if you can get enough, and either way create your "manure pits", put a stick in the manure pits (otherwise you won't be able to find them!) and black plastic over the lot, then plant the pits. I would swap the Runners / Board beans for something else this year - or hand dig and clean the bed :thumb:

 

take normal precautions with roundup and you should be ok - dont apply when its windy and keep the sprayhead 1ft from the ground and dont use a fine mist. Can always be applied by watering can, its just slower. and dont walk on the sprayed area and then onto the grass strips, it will produce dead footprints

If its got marestail then you have problems anyway - whether digging or rotovating