Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi All. My wife and I have just got our first plot. It hasn't been touched for about 8 years or so. It resembled a scene from the Burma Campaign but we have managed to chop the brambles and weeds down to a few inches above the soil.
What is our next task? do we dig the taproots and other gubbins out by hand or do we just smother the plot in carpet and cardboard.
Will it be unrealistic to grow anything on it until next season. any advice greatly received.

Hi Beltane & welcome, lucky you, wish I had an allotment! I think you'll find there are different ideas on which is the best method of preparing your plot now but I would reckon that maybe you should tackle a part of it now & carefully dig out all the roots & weeds & plant it up so that you get something for your efforts this year & leave the rest covered for now,but I'm sure someone will come along with a better idea. Good luck!

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Into every life a little rain must fall.

Welcome to the vine Beltane, and congrats on the new plot!

We got our first plot 6 months ago, and sounds like yours is in the same sort of condition that ours was, if you take a look at the thread below you'll get an idea of what it was like and what we've been up to for 6 months, now it is pretty clear and ready to grow!

Newbie seeking advice / opinions / help! Possibility of an allotment!

As to what you should do now, it would very much depend on what time you have available each week! If you are in a position that you can spend as much as you want down there, then it would be feasible to hand dig out all the roots and double dig, recon on about 6 hours for a 3m by 3m area, but if time is shorter then you've 2 choices.

You could cover some of it with cardboard / black plastic / carpet and leave till next year, concentrating on clearing the other areas to be able to get some crops from it this year, or

Wait till the weeds start to grow and spray with Glyphosphate, then turn over the beds and get planting, retreating or removing any weeds that do start to come back as and when neccessary.

Option 2 isnt organic, and is to most folks minds the least prefferable method, but would allow you to make the most of your time and to get some crops this year, perhaps moving over to organic methods in the future, if thats what you wish to aim for!

Whatever you choose to do, remember its supposed to be fun aswell as being productive, so dont wear yourself out trying to do too much, little and often is the watchwords, and celebrate your successes!

Lastly, welcome to the madhouse and I hope you enjoy it on here as much as the rest of us inmates! Dont worry about asking silly questions, we've all been newbies and the only dumb questions are the ones you dont ask for fear of looking silly!

PS Nice name btw!

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Blessings
Suzanne (aka Mrs Dobby)

'Garden naked - get some colour in your cheeks'!

The Dobby's Pumpkin Patch - a blogspot work in progress!
Last updated 26th November2008 - more new piccies!

Hello and welcome to the Vine Beltane. I don't have a plot, just the garden (and not much of that down to veggies yet). I would suggest much as Mrs Dobby does that you should work at it gently and see how it goes. Dig some so that you have somewhere to plant stuff for this year as this will give you enthusiasm to keep at it.

Most of all, take it a step at a time and enjoy the whole thing. Good luck and look forward to reading your experiences.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Welcome Beltane. Don't think I can add anything to Mrs D's advice, only reiterate, relax and enjoy yourselves. I'm sure you'll find space to get a few things in this year, and that thrill will keep you going. See you around.

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Regards, Jane
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? The creative adult is the child who has survived.
Ursula LeGuin
http://www.etribes.com/madderbat

Hi Beltane Welcome to the vine. Good ideas as outlined above, new to allotment gardening too, got mine last June. i think when you have cleared an area you need to plant something, so you hace that sense of achevement, something to harvest later too. Otherwise with no reward of growing you may feel is it all worth it and give up. I dont want you and i am certain no one on here wants you to feel that way. Plant somethng big a nd bullish, maybe marrows, courgettes and dream and plan all the other things you can grow next year. Good luck. Please keep us posted.

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Denise xox

Learn from the mistakes of others because you'll never live long enough to make them all yourself.
-- Alfred E. Neumann
http://irchesterplot.blogspot.com

I'm fairly new to my plot and what I have done is cover it all in plastic, divide into 3 sections. I'm digging and preparing a bit on each section so I can grow some roots, brassicas and peas marrow etc. I figure if I can have a bit on each section ready for planting and then work on the rest for later sowing/ planting then I can stick to a crop rotation plan.

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Belgrave-allotments.co.uk

Sorry, Beltane the only way to get rid of brambles is to dig the roots out - docks too. I got my allotment 18 months ago and had to machete my way through. The brambles and docks were shoulder high. I chopped it all down, started digging roots out and covered what I couldn't attack with old carpets. As soon as I'd cleared a bit I planted it with something. This is so much better than leaving it to grow more weeds. As I said, 18 months on it is looking good.

Hi Beltane - and welcome.

We are in very similar situations - see my blog and the pics on it.

Mrs Dobby is spot on - as usual - you have 2 options. I would plead with you to go for the hared organic option. That's what I've done and I am already feeling the benefit...not in terms of productivity (maybe in 2 years time) but in terms of personal satisfaction. I feel that this is a real partnership between me and the earth and it would be wrong to mess it up with chemicals and machinery.

So my advice would be...

1. take a "bit by bit" approach. Be satisfied with small triumphs, maybe only get 1/4 of your plot sorted this year and smother the rest with old carpets.

2. dig out perennial roots by hand. It takes ages but will put you on very intimate terms with almost every inch of your plot. I visited a plot last week that had been chemically blitzed last autumn and then rotivated - and now they are all back.

3. create raised beds. They allow you to parcel up the gound into manageable lumps and then you can really get those bits weeded, dug, improved and manured. Any beds you don't get a crop from you can green manure ready for next season.

4. plant a willow structure to sit under - see my thread Growing Week in my Primary School

5. garden with local wildlife in mind

You are on quite a journey - have fun

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it's written in the wind that we're two, carved out in the sand that we're real,
it's lit up in the stars that we're true, we're destined in the sky to be glad
Paul Weller
http://johntygreentoes.blogspot.com/

I know precious little about having an allotment as I'm still waiting for one, but one thing I know for sure, I'd want something off it this season and I suspect you could lose interest very quickly if there were no rewards to be had in the short term

Even if you only manage to clear a small area and cover the rest you ,will feel as if you're making headway.

Enjoy this time becasue the satisfaction you will get when you harvest your first crops will be the best feeling ever

i would be guessing by now that you would have made a plan of your plot and have a rough idea where most things are going ( i made two myself before i even put the fork in the ground ) the fact is you want be able to do all in one year , so you have to be realistic and pick a small part and prepare it a bit at a time .
by doing a small part and making a time slot in your life to get it done and then choose a crop to plant when finished, i dont know if your deep bedding or rows but if you dig over a patch say 4' by 10' and pick something to put in it at least you see some progress and food.
as they say rome was not built in a day , i know this look at my plot iv'e had it since october and worked it 12 hours a week to get where it's now and i recon about three years to get it finished ( if you look on the web site you will see how i piled up my soil into temp beds.
good luck and enjoy the experiance

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---) CARL (----
ILFRACOMBE
NORTH DEVON

a seed planted today makes a meal tomorrow!

www.freewebs.com/carlseawolf

now in blog form ! UPDATED 01 / 04 / 08

Thanks so much for the wonderful responses from everyone. Its nice to know that we are not alone. I'll be doing more on saturday with renewed purpose i can tell you.

Hello and welcome beltane!
Congrats on your lottie! Life will never be the same
First purchase (or freebie) MUST be 2 garden chairs and a thermos!
You can easily put spuds into an undug area.
Some of our new neighbours just dug a hole a spades depth, stuck in a clump of well rotted manure with the spud ontop and covered over with the remaining soil. Planted in a row 18" apart with 2ft between the rows.
They then dug out the weeds as they cropped the spuds. Easy!!
Worth putting a few in surely??

Funnily enough we cleared enough space for 3 chairs so that we could drink some beer before we started clearing! I must be a natural. Hee! Hee!

welcome Beltane yep took on my lottie last November time sounds the same as yours,and after asking simaller on the vine, went with digging digging and digging, only other piece of advice i can add is take a pick axe for the bramble roots or a cheep solid metal fork, i broke 2 deicent wooden shafts,trying to dig them out.

welcome Beltane, I too have recently joined the ranks of madness and digging. Now my back hurts and when I close my eyes all I see is couch-grass and bind-weed root. Having said this I've got my first earlies in today and sowed carrots and parsnips, It's a great feeling to get stuff in the soil. Good luck with your plot and don't break your back.

My arms are so raked up that it looks as though I've already made several attempts at ending it all! We've hacked down the entire plot and I've dug an area of about 22 feet square. I didn't realise that there could be so many taproots in such a small area!

hi and welcome started this year, got a small patch dug over and put some potatoe's in on sat. if your going to cover it look at your local carpet shop's and see if they'l let you have off cut's etc. good luck and hope all goes well

Thanks for all the fantastic advice everybody! We've finally cut back all of the brambles etc and are now slowly removing the taproots by hand. We are going to be leaving a natural/wild patch but I would like to get some native wild seed in bulk to attract insects and birds etc plus one of the other allotment holders keeps bees so I feel that it will all tie in. (A lovely lady who has offered us honey in return for jars). Anyway, what I wondered is if there is anywhere where I could buy seed in bulk for this project. Any ideas would be greatly received.

Hi Beltane!

Sounds like we'll be doing the same as you on our new plot - absolutely full of weeds with tap roots. Make sure you keep a photo record of your progress.

Happy digging.

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I've had my weetabix...

Hi Eternal! The photos we took 3 weeks ago already show that we've done a fair bit. Its wonderful fun isn't it?!

Google Plantlife Beltane - you should get some info on wildflower seeds from there.

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 30th - Mr Stinky's Excellent Adventure (and a Christmas Cake)