Unused allotments

Cos of the worms that get exposed

 

£8 for 150ml! http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roundup-Ready-Use-Weedkiller-Gel/dp/B005ZALTF0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365613124&sr=8-1&keywords=roundup gel#productDescription - Flippin heck! My plots total over two thirds of an acre and if I used that stuff I'd go bankrupt.


P.S. I use (wetted) newspaper under straw, grass & shreddings mulch, as I found cardboard 'underlay' dried out, attracted loads of woodlice and provided a haven for voles/mices that attacked my crops, ate pea and (runner) bean seeds in the ground, destroyed a large part of last year's strawberry crop, and have now eaten all my overwintering onions down to ground level.

I did use fresh chainsaw 'chips' from cutting my firewood to spread around my Hazel coppice area when first planted.

 

But surely you don't have to add fertililse to anything? You can choose to put fertiliser on for a faster growing / better yielding / whatever crop. I definitely put fertiliser on all my trees because I can and want to and it makes them grow faster.

In a wood, planted as a timber crop, its probably not economical, and the "crop" is a several-generation thing so there is no incentive in most models of farming economics.

 

I bought a couple of pots last year to use on bindweed within existing planting - thus fiddly to use normal Roundup / spray. They covered very little area and worked out incredibly expensive. Reverted to careful application instead.

 

I'm sure I read a tip somewhere about mixing Roundup Concentrate with wallpaper paste mix. I've never tried it but can't see why it wouldn't work the same as Roundup Gel.

 

I just spray glyphosate, I think it might be slightly cheaper than "roundup", but not much.
I'd never use it on annual weeds, only the deep rooted perennials.

 

Interesting. I've bought Bayer's Glyphosate recently as it was much cheaper in garden centre, but as the garden centre is so expensive the comparison there may be skewed. I'll look around and compare prices elsewhere

 

Cheapest I've found is £34.50 for 5 litres delivered http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180958480210&clk_rvr_id=467041344360 That's 360g/litre concentrate, not weak 96g/litre 'concentrate' that Wilkos sell (which would cost over £200 to get the same amount of active ingredient).


P.S. The £8 150ml gel contains 7.2g/litre, so that's a whopping £8/g for the glyphosate, so buying gel would cost £14,400 to get the same amount of glyphosate in that 5 litre container from ebay. Although application would be more efficient, that's an enormous premium to pay)

 

There are allotments at the top of my road and I often pass them when walking the dogs. It breaks my heart to see so many unused when so many of us are just sitting on waiting lists. I have joined landshare to see if I can get a little bit of growing space through them any quicker. Let's hope............

 

One old hand at our site has a quote that he uses often..."Everybody gardens differently".

There are people who are there everyday or every weekend, some who only appear during the main growing season and some you seldom see at all. And some you never see.

Now if someone not from our site had a walk around it, it would appear to them that around half of the plots are not in use, when in fact ALL are. Some are new plot holders and prefer to "cover and come back" (cover the ground and come back a year later to then dig the weed free soil). Some may be busy with family matters, illness or work. Some only come to plant a few garden centre plants, some look after livestock or just grow fruit or perenniel crops such as Rhubarb and asparagus.

But there is no excuse for overgrown plots and they should be given to someone who wants to use them...however that may be.

There are some horrendous waiting lists around the country and I do feel sorry for those people who are on one with little chance of getting a plot in the near future.

Steve...

 

This is my 2nd year of allotment gardening and having spent most of the first clearing the plot and organising the soil sides etc my first for growing properly. But like you i am suuronded by plots that are doing nothing but cultivating intresting variations in weeds and my council have informed me that there is a 3 yr waiting list i have no idea what they are doing and i dont think they do either.