Complete newby with a few questions..

[seniab]

Hi Becca,

your plot sounds very similar to mine when I first took it over in July; I had a complete forest of brambles and nettles at one end, a grassland in the middle, and the far end was all nettles.

I did hire a brush cutter, but only for the grass and the nettles - it wouldn't touch the brambles at all, they had been there so long that some of them were enormous - i've just dug one up that had a root 9 inches thick!

I tackled the brambles with some secateurs, and an old hedging tool that my grandfather gave me - pretty close to a machette actually! and that did the trick. Then it's just a case of digging them out, and that takes time i'm afraid. I think the last of my root clumps will be out on my next trip down the lottie (fingers crossed).

When it came to the nettles, I was lucky in as much as the roots were so near the surface - mainly covered only by old leaves - that I could pull them up quite easily. I'm not sure if this is common or not.

I'd just burn the lot, if you've anything like a 10 rod plot you'll be swamped by the rubbish. Get rid of it and start anew, besides the ash is meant to be quite good, in small amounts.

All the best,

seniab.

[pete10]

Sounds like a lot of work in front of you good luck . One thing i used to get
the roots out was a tool like a mattock but with a big sharpe blade.I will find out its real name later.. Oh yes here is the link to the tools .

http://www.get-digging.co.uk/tools.htm

[Becca]

the shredder at my local hirecentre is electric so no go as no electricity available, i've reserved the brushcutter for the weekend so I hope my brambles aren't as bad as seniab's, they've mostly been choppable with loppers/ secatares so fingers crossed the brush cutter will make an impression.. my nettles seem to mostly come up quite easily with a bit off root when pulled so i'm trying to do that as much as possible so i hopefully slightly reduce the amount of root i'll have to dig up (tried digging a small patch today and it almost made me give up :O( ).. according to some neighbours i met today my allotment has been virtually unattended for about 9 years (with a few odd bursts of activity the last about 2 years back) so i doubt i'll find much under the brambles, the neighbours apparently used to strim it down yearly until the brambles took too much of a hold.. I have been told where 2 very established rhubarb plants are lurking tho so i'll go carefully when digging around there :O)

[Minty]

I am currently using a pick axe to get my bramble roots out and the 20 square meters of rotting carpet the previous pillock, sorry plot owner left behind. Good luck Minty

[Peter]

A word of caution on using a brushcutter.

If you do not leave enough bramble stem to use as a "handle" you will have more trouble uprooting them. Handle plus fork/mattock/whatever levering from below is easier.

[Becca]

was going to ask them to leave them relatively high (bribing all my menfolk with beer etc, after the cutting of course) as i was worried about hendgehogs etc so i wanted to make sure they were left a bit longer.. then i need to work out how to get the b*ggers out.. probably a slow and steady thing, not sure i'm strong enough to wield a pick/mattock, have had problems in the past with wrists and elbows..