First Allotment

[marky807Participant]

Hi everyone, I hope I’m posting this in the right place!

As above I have just gotten my first allotment, it is 35ft wide and 65ft long and a real mess, 6 foot nettles, thistles, what I think are dock weed and who knows what else. On the upside a good portion of it has been covered in visqueen etc. for the past two years, which was the last time it had any attention. I will try to include a few pictures if I can.

My plan is to clear the rubbish and rotting pallets, remove the tarps and visqueen and scalp the lot with a strimmer I have bought, rake off the cuttings and then cover with cardboard (I can get plenty of quite thick stuff from work) and then cover that with horse manure and leave it until next year adding more if necessary.

So what do you guys think?? Thanks, Mark.

[charlesModerator]

Sounds fine Mark and all good.
Maybe no rush to remove polythene if there are many weeds still trying to grow, showing as yellow leaves if you lift it.

[Mick104Participant]

If you are not going to use the plot until next year, you could cover with black poly for the summer and cook the weed roots. On the other hand, there is still a lot you could plant this season.

[JDParticipant]

You didn’t specify whether the manure was fresh or well rotted (about 18 months old). If it were me and you had some well rotted manure I would create and plant a few beds now and concentrate on doing those really well, rather than spread what may be a limited resource too thin and being disappointed. That way you’ll be delighted by your success and keen to do more. Should you have sufficient manure I would spread a thinish later on the rest of the patch and re-lay your tarps over it so the soil bugs can start improving your soil while the weeds are dying down. However, if you have lots – go for it!
A couple more things: test your manure first for the presence of aminopyralid, a persistent weedkiller. Nothing more soul destroying than having your lovely crops shrivelling after laying compost.
Secondly, you can make use of all those strimmed weeds in a compost heap if you have sufficient to get it hot enough to kill the seeds.
Good luck
Jan

[JDParticipant]

Whoops. Thinish layer, not later.

[PhilParticipant]

I had the same situation with my allotment. I started by strimming it all and then covering with black plastic – get decent thicker grade off ebay – it’ll last longer.

Then – reveal one bed at a time and cover with cardboard and compost – 4″ deep if you can obtain/buy that. Then grow stuff.

I’m slowly revealing one bed/strip at a time in this way and gradually spreading out.

[PhilParticipant]

I had the same situation with my allotment. I started by strimming it all and then covering with black plastic – get decent thicker grade off ebay – it’ll last longer.

Then – reveal one bed at a time and cover with cardboard and compost – 4″ deep if you can obtain/buy that. Then grow stuff.

I’m slowly revealing one bed/strip at a time in this way and gradually spreading out.

[Author]

Posts