Reply To: Allotment Politics

[Phil R]

Sounds great Gary, well done. I would just add that when adding so much manure in such a thick layer you would be wise to tread down the first half, lower layer, before adding the the top half and treading it down firm too. This is just to ensure that the crops you grow don’t dry out when the top layer of composted manure dries out as manure does. You want it quite firm, just not compacted. I have converted quite a few people on my allotment site and there will be more no doubt. I do sometimes give them a few reminders, like treading down their manure based beds. At first people were sceptical, then complimentary about the lack of weeds and then something amazing happened, I won the best new tenant in the Cheltenham borough council allotment awards. (800+ plots) A fancy ceremony with the mayor and a nice silver trophy covered with names dating back to the 60s. Then a story in the local newspaper about me and “my” no-dig method. After that happened I gained a lot of credibility and many people on our site took notice and ordered record amounts of horse manure from my manure supplying farmer. He ran out of horse manure and started collecting it from other farms, ha ha. I will be putting up a thread on the no dig part of this forum when I’m not quite so busy. I doubled the size of my no dig plot this year and made it hard for myself by starting late (March), almost there now though. I found my old thread on this forum about how I started but the photos are not there any more as I think Charles has changed the forum software since then. I have the whole thing documented with photos though so hopefully I can get them up here soon. Keep it up Gary, good luck mate. :O)