exciting news

Just had an email I have been offered some land via landshare about 5 mile up the road.
South facing and half an acre in size with some fruit trees too
It is not in the bag yet but hopefully if all goes well.
I will need to get digging asap. Bit daunting as I have not had a proper garden since I was a kid. Just been growing few odds an d ends in containers last year or too. So expect plenty of questions
Potatoes are the first thing that comes to mind. Not sure how much work is needed yet but at a minimum I guess digging over and raking

 

Cor, good news

Welcome back

 

Good luck captainhastings. I'm not a veg grower so not cut out for giving you any helpful advice with this unless it's tomatoes. Being early in the season at least you will be able to put the ground to good use this year.

 

Sounds great Captainhastings

 

good luck and congratulations. so how does landshare work? compared to getting allotment etc.

 

Well people who have land they don't use or can't for what ever reason let others use it to grow stuff basically
http://www.landshare.net/
good idea but in my area very thin on the ground so I was quite surprised to get a response

 

Went to have a look today bit smaller than I thought but still a useful size. On quite a steep bank. One big patch covered in bramble which i can soon clear. But some grass bank. With grass is it just a case of digging it in as deep as you can and dicing it up ?
There is all so an old green house, A full water butt at the top of the hill and some posh plastic cloches in the bramble

 

If its Couch grass its better to spray it off with Roundup, digging it in will just make more plants.

 

How about cutting the turf off and disposing of it if I take a thick slice would that be viable ? If not roundup it is

 

You need to get all the long white roots out if there is Couch grass, which there probably will be, it can grow a new plant from the tiniest bit of root and the roots go deep.

You'll have to wait till its actively growing before spraying, then its a good month before its killed it off. You'll want to be getting on with things before that I guess.

What I did when I got a field was to put down a membrane and grow in pots till the ground was cleared.

 

When I was younger I cleared my allotment of couch grass in its first summer, it had been just left for a good few years.
Its possible to dig it out, teasing the roots from the soil, but hard work.
Round up is OK but a Ziggy says it will be July before you can dig it.

I'd just take a small area at a time and dig it throughly.
Couch grass is preferable to bind weed in my opinion.

 

Maybe a two-pronged approach? Make a start by digging up part of the ground that you intend to grow the earlier crops, taking out the perennial weeds, like the aforementioned couch grass. Later on, probably another month, give the rest of the ground a dose of Glyphosate (Roundup or somesuch(I use Wilko's own brand)), which you may have to repeat if it doesn't get all of it. Tip, don't try to do it all at once, set yourself an achievable target. Hope this helps

Cheers...Freddy

 

My fork has got four, but there you go.

 

Just a word of caution if taking the RoundUp approach (which is the one I'd recommend in most circumstances), you can't do that if there is any possibility of the round up (or any glyphosate based product) getting into water. That would be a pond, a ditch, stream, whatever.

Glyphosate breaks down rapidly into harmless starches on contact with the soil, by microbial activity. Doesn't happen in water though, and it is harmful to aquatic life, plus you'll get done if you get caught letting it get into water.

Just a word of caution.

 

Congratulations. Sounds like your'e going to be very busy