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Hi
We took on a large allotment in late autumn last year and unfortunately due to the rain were not able to get it dug over.
So, we have 9 "beds" which are roughly what the previous occupant had, but they are quite grassy and weedy but nothing too awful except the odd bit of couch.
The soil is very heavy clay (we could make bricks from it) and we know we really need to improve it for planting, but realistically we won't get the whole lot done this Spring.
I have access to some manure - some rotted and some fresh - and a big pile of bark chippings.
We are thinking the following:
- One bed is dug and weed free, so we will cover this with well rotted manure as a mulch and plant into it. We do have quite a lot of fruit bushes in pots which really need to go in ASAP and this is the area where we plan to build a fruit cage in any case.
- the remaining 8 beds are grass and weeds. We are thinking of treating 6 these with Roundup Ultra and then mulching with a mixture of wood chippings and fresh manure as an organic mulch and pretty much leaving these until later in the year.
- for the remaining 2, we will probably bite the bullet and dig them over as well, and try to improve with well rotted manure as much as possible, but maybe treat these with Roundup just for this first year and plant into them later in the season.
Does this sound sensible? Not sure if we are going in the right direction here.
I keep reading about no-dig method being better for the soil structure but also others on the allotments nearby are busy digging hard already
although to be fair we have a much bigger plot than most and are taking the long term approach and taking our time to get the infrastructure in, so over winter we have cleared tons of carpet and old shed/compost bins and replaced those with a new shed and compost bins, good water butts etc.
We took on a large allotment in late autumn last year and unfortunately due to the rain were not able to get it dug over.
So, we have 9 "beds" which are roughly what the previous occupant had, but they are quite grassy and weedy but nothing too awful except the odd bit of couch.
The soil is very heavy clay (we could make bricks from it) and we know we really need to improve it for planting, but realistically we won't get the whole lot done this Spring.
I have access to some manure - some rotted and some fresh - and a big pile of bark chippings.
We are thinking the following:
- One bed is dug and weed free, so we will cover this with well rotted manure as a mulch and plant into it. We do have quite a lot of fruit bushes in pots which really need to go in ASAP and this is the area where we plan to build a fruit cage in any case.
- the remaining 8 beds are grass and weeds. We are thinking of treating 6 these with Roundup Ultra and then mulching with a mixture of wood chippings and fresh manure as an organic mulch and pretty much leaving these until later in the year.
- for the remaining 2, we will probably bite the bullet and dig them over as well, and try to improve with well rotted manure as much as possible, but maybe treat these with Roundup just for this first year and plant into them later in the season.
Does this sound sensible? Not sure if we are going in the right direction here.
I keep reading about no-dig method being better for the soil structure but also others on the allotments nearby are busy digging hard already
although to be fair we have a much bigger plot than most and are taking the long term approach and taking our time to get the infrastructure in, so over winter we have cleared tons of carpet and old shed/compost bins and replaced those with a new shed and compost bins, good water butts etc.
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