New Plots, Dock, Couch Grass, Vetch and Marestail What do you do?

[Stevie342000Member]

I got my first allotment plot last November it had to have been the wettest day it was raining cats and dogs. Between the rain late last year and the snow, I managed to dig over a part of the land. Then it was rock solid with frost, and to top it all come March I was in my final months at university.

The whole thing got overgrown and the snails/slugs this year have had more to eat than I have. I applied weedkiller with the best of intentions and before I could get the land dug over it was too dry to dig. Needless to say it has had no problem in growing back but hopefully most of it is weakened enough to kill it off by using the No Dig method, the docks have not seeded, as I have been applying weedkiller and pulling off the leaves, the same with the marestail.

I have been following John Harrison’s Allotment diaries and can recommend it to anyone, his books are cheap and full of common sense. The best crop I had was the potatoes and have to say that that soil is now tip top. Took the advice of an old guy, who said to use leaf mould in the trench and then plant the potatoes.

Have just planted some cauliflowers, cabbages interspersed with Salad Onions for early next spring. But then I discovered your No Dig Book through The Ecologist and it has sent me on a curious journey. I was familiar with the principle and having majored in Wildlife and Practical Conservation can agree with it in principle, I can recommended the Agricultural Testament by Sir Albert Howard out of print but google it, you will find it as a pdf and I could recommend the Weed Problem by F. C. King.

But I digress, I was aware of what the weeds were in my site, the marestail is going to be the problem. Dock is easy, as are the teasels, dig them out and put them to one side until well and truly dead or in a bucket of water, and then compost them, without seed heads which must be burnt. Couch grass is easy enough to get rid of covering it does work, I not knowingly had been skirting on the fringe of No Digging by burying areas with manure.

The approach I was going to take is to dig out the dock, teasels and to cut most of the grass down. Then cover each area in newspaper about 5-7 sheets thick, then top this with manure and compost (we have both and leaf mould at our site). Let the worms and nature do the work, works for me, no one goes around digging a woodland over to ensure that growing can continue or in the wild.

But what about the marestail it is going to push its way through, but at least on a clean plot which this would then be it would be easy to spot and to remove.

The plot would be divided into 4′ wide strips across the plot with 18″ paths between each plot, this allows the space to be divided into 1′ squares another interesting concept Square foot Gardening. As I have two sheds and a sycamore tree at the far end of the plot, I was going to use that area as a seating, barbecue area, along with a small 6′ x 3′ pond. The water butt, composting area is at the other end, which is where the greenhouse will go.

Concept behind that one is to encourage pond life that will eat the slugs and snails, currently using slug pellets and the results are not pleasant. On top of which anything that eats those slugs or snails are likely to get a bit sick as well. By selective planting of heritage, modern seeds both of the vegetable, fruit and flowers.

The latter are to encourage wildlife and to be cut for the home, where ever possible I will use old native varieties of flowers or heritage vegetable seeds but I tend to agree some F1 does have a place but if you wish to collect your own seeds and keep costs down, not forgetting saving some varieties for later generations, you have to use Heritage Varieties. A small gene pool is not good for diversity, which is why they should be protected, they may hold genetic material which is of use in years to come.

Not been the best year for me to get the allotment into shape, as for most of the first 6 months I could or should have been growing rice and then of course it was frozen solid but onwards and upwards. Needless to say the council have been on my back but frankly I think they expect too much in the first season.

I have grown and do grow vegetables in partnership with other projects and building planters and containerising is different to growing in the ground directly. So one year on or almost and I now know what to do and how to go about it. The planting plan has been developed the seeds are purchased now the land needs to be made ready. Many of the peeps at the allotment grow nothing from now until next spring, to me that is a waste, it worries me that they leave the soil bare as well, any nutrients will be leached out. This year the slugs won out but next year will be a different story.

[charlesModerator]

 Wow you may as well carry on and write a book!

Interesting though, you have found enough time, energy and materials to do a lot of the necessary graft to clean your soil. It sounds as though you are nearly there and I read recently of someone hoeing marestail for three years and it then disappeared! It may depend if it is growing freely around the edges of your allotment which would mean it spreading back in, however well you cope with it. I have similar issues with bindweed and occasional but diligent weeding with a trowel keeps it muted, but it is still there after many years.

Fair point about heritage seeds, or just use modern but non-hybrid seeds in some cases. Slugs I think should diminish because their numbers are always high on overgrown soil and they take a while to die off. You should not need pellets next year, or perhaps a tiny amount eg twenty in the whole year for the whole plot, just near tender plants at key moments. I have found that ponds, frogs etc are often not hugely effective – I think because of how predators do not eat all their prey. Sometimes I find a toad under spinach leaves, and slugs under leaves nearby…. probably the toad’s larder.

‘Wildlife control’ of pests is often exaggerated and I find the main purpose of companion planting, for example, is my enjoyment of beautiful flowers amongst the vegetables. Good luck with a new season.

PS don’t worry about nutrients leaching out, that happens mainly if you apply synthetic fertiliser at the wrong time or in overdose: organic gardeners agonise unnecessarily about leaching. Bare soil in winter helps to keep slug numbers down! but it is certainly good if you can grow winter vegetables.

[Stevie342000Member]

Thanks Charles, with all the projects that we are involved in besides the allotment not sure that there would be enough time to right a book. Beyond writing it where do you start with getting it published.

Apart from which do we need another one on growing and concepts that we perceive as new which in fact are not, raising awareness that working the soil in a more naturalistic way, whilst protecting biodiversity by minimal use of chemicals or choosing plant species according to your area in the country or protecting heritage seeds with a mix or modern blends. They all have their place perhaps this is an area that could do with further research and publication.

As for ponds it is not about the frogs or the toads, it is about the food chains and webs that that allows to develop in the area that you are growing in. Stronger more diverse food chains and webs means in the longer term that there are more predators, succession will ensure over time that there will be a top predator. Which in the longer term is good for the environment and your growing of food stuffs.

Growing fruit, vegetables and flowers for the home is about more than just the growing if we are to succeed in ensuring that our food is free from chemicals by growing it ourselves the environment needs to be protected in that process.

Back to the plot, the marestail is not near to the edges it is in patches across the plot there is not a particular lot of it, when you consider the size of the plot which is 82′ x 32′ or so about a square foot tightly packed would be about right. I heard the only thing to do is too keep hacking away at it and it will eventually give up the ghost. The roots go down to hades or 2 metres or more, so are very difficult to remove, this of course goes against the no dig policy as well.

Turning over of soil by digging destroys the horizons within the soils which form naturally, which is what the No Digging is about, it is about returning the soil back to nature and letting nature do the digging for you, whether that be at the micro, meso or macrophyte level. The soil is a living organism, there are complex relationships between plants, their roots, and organisms that live in the soil. It’s like yoghurt it is a living culture, so digging it breaks up that culture.

As for seeds, a mixture of hybrid and heritage is the way to go for me, a lot of F1 species such as Tomato Inca F1 are designed to be used outside, which is a plus point, as it frees up greenhouse space. Especially for other species from the tomato family i.e. Aubergines, Peppers etc.

As for slugs they should reduce over the next year due to the clearance, so much of what you do in growing is common sense, if there are less or no weeds or places for them to hide then they will be no food. Of course there is no food for them so that controls numbers as well.

The reason for companion planting flowers, fruit and vegetables for me is one of that is how it would be in nature but in a managed way. What you are trying to achieve is a variety of foods for different invertebrates. The pond for me is there to encourage damsel and dragonflies, what is nicer than to be sat under the shade of the tree, with a steak on the grill and to see such sights as you sit reading a book on your bench? The mixing of fruit trees/bushes, vegetables and flowers in the same space is the way it would have been done in the days before mechanisation, which is what Larkrise to Candleford is about if you look hard enough or Cranford.

The idea is to encourage more invertebrates such as hoverflies, butterflies and other creepy crawlies is to have a refuge one which pollinates your plants and in turn is aesthetically and visually pleasing to the eye.

Should plots be left bare in winter? Not for me they should be productive all year round we are not in farming; a mistake many make with their regimented rows. Square foot planting is an interesting concept, in a square foot you could for instance plant 4 lettuces inter-planted with 16 radishes or 1 cabbage and 4 lettuces.

Not forgetting green manures which play a role in fixing nutrients, nitrogen is water soluble and will leach out of the soil, hence my concerns of bare soil, look at grass it is lush and green most of the year but yellowing in spring. Why? partly due to lower light levels or being covered with snow but mostly due to the leaching of nitrogen and the inability of symbiotic bacteria/fungi not being able to fix nitrogen for the grass, ergo yellow grass.

Of course it is all about how much do you want to grow, how much can you store, how do you store you produce? There are older methods, such as a cool shed or cellar for the roots and fruits which store such as carrots, potatoes, apples and pears. Then there are chutneys, pickles, jams and other preserves and lets not forget drying and freezing.

There are varieties which can be grown all year round, the lunar calendar does play a role in when you plant, from a scientific standpoint, if a crop has a high water content it then follows that that will be influenced by the moon, if the latter can influence the tides it then follows that it will affect crops.

Another reason for me to grow flowers as well is for the herbal remedies that can be concocted from these, as in James Wong, some of those receipts are old not knew. Is there nothing new under the sun or are we just re-inventing the wheel?

For me it is about getting back to nature but in doing that it is not necessarily associated with the yoghurt weaving or living in a yhert, nor is it hippy dippy green movement who in general mostly alienate a whole section of society. Sustainability is not just about cutting consumerism, it is economic and political but the other aspect is not it the right thing to be doing, we are very wasteful and we have finite resources.

Well that is chapter two finished, never did do short always did long and I think you will find I have used exactly the right amount of words to say what I needed to say.

[Stevie342000Member]

Well took a small trip down to the allotment today, it’s 3 miles from home in old money or 30 minutes on the bus.

We have had a little rain here over the last few days, the plot was once again fit for growing rice.

Which is why my return to no dig gardening is so appealing, the plot has not seen any growing in the last 5 years, I inherited the plot last November.

Having dug over part of it so that I could get some crops in for this year, has been a trial, its me against the slugs, this year they ate more than we did.

Recently planted 60 potatoes for autumn/winter cropping and 64 cabbages/cauliflowers, this time I bit the bullet and used slug pellets, so far so good it has kept them at bay.

Then I rediscovered during that time period the no dig principle of growing, to me it makes sense as you are not disturbing the micro-organisms that build up in the soil.

So with this in my mind I went to the plot mid-afternoon today with the intention of digging out those pesky weeds (sorry plants in the wrong place), docks, marestail and dandelions. These have duly been despatched and added to my bucket with a hole along with the comfrey to rot down to make liquid fertiliser. The safest way accept burning to deal with them.

Well the goodness is the nice men from the council had dropped about 3 tonnes of shredded bark and leaves for me at the top of my plot. Last year I managed to nab them and got 3 truck loads of leaves, which they had collected from the local park.

The problem with our allotment is that during the whole of the summer and before spring all the manure had gone and was not replaced. To me this bad policy as it should be rotted down before putting on your plots. Which makes the no dig process for me a slow one. But will have words with a colleague who’s daughter is a bit of horse rider, to see if they can drop some off at a specific time to me at my allotment plot.

Compost not a problem as it was my plan to place 7 sheets of news paper down between a 6″ layer of manure and compost (we have a group composting area) so it is off with the wheelbarrow for me.

This has now changed slightly as I will be awaiting the next lot of shredded bark and manure before I can add the compost, which should serve me as a start to grow in from this year onwards.

As the leaves, shredded bark and compost are on a first come first served basis it is my intention to get more than my fair share, such is life.

But the level of my plot is about 12-18″ too low which is why it floods, that and the fact that the soil is compacted, it is my intention to let the little critters do the work of digging it for me, leaving me with a fine tilth.

Then to top the whole plot up each year with more manure and compost (my own of course), pity the weather here is not warmer and the days longer as I could grow a lovely crop of rice right now. Anyone for stir-fry?

But then again I will have to play it by ear lest I should miss out on enough, compost, manure and shredded bark or leaves to cover the whole plot, which was the problem last year, it all ran out before I could get to it.

[Stevie342000Member]

Upon reflection and more than a little sleep, it occurred to me that the principle I was using last year before the organics ran out was to cover the plot and to use the No Dig approach to sorting the issues with the plot that I have.

One of the ideas pondered upon last year was to put in a central drainage ditch with feathers running into to it from across the plot.

It looks as though this is going to be more and more the case that this will need to be implemented.

Thinking it through with the reading of the last few days and the discovery that the plot is once again water logged, has resulted with me revisiting this thought.

The current thinking is to follow the No Dig for the 4′ growing strips across the plot and to utilise the paths as the drainage feathers leading to the central ditch which terminates at the water butt with a larger square dug out as a sump area.

But in the meantime if the rain will hold off for the rest of the day, it is time to dig those ditches to a depth of 18″ at the centre point sloping to the sump area. Then to allow the water to collect in that ditch/sup, pump it into my water butt with my handy dandy pump on a drill attachment or into a nearby drainage ditch on another plot which goes straight into the drains.

Then to fill in the ditches (forming the paths)with chipped bark and the removed top soil as a finish, the addition of further layers of chipped bark over the coming years will raise the path. Bark is being used instead of shingle as I can not afford shingle apart from which there is a clause in tenancy which says it is prohibited anyhow.

This hopefully will solve the problem of a lack of drainage of course the drainage ditch is two fold when it comes to watering the 1000 gallon water butt can be turned on and water filters through the plot via the drainage ditch.

However it is my thinking that once the soil has been utilised with the No Dig method that the problem of water logging will disappear, as it is tied in with the hard pan formed in the past usage of the site and the couch grass which interferes with drainage. But the belt and braces method will do no harm, applications of lime to the soil will stop any over acidity, as it is common for manure to be brought to our site when it is not really well rotted, but you have to take it or miss out on your share.

It looks as though it is going to be a labour intensive autumn for me if the plot is to be ready for growing next year. A large 6′ x 6′ composting area will be under construction shortly which should help with creating my own compost for the site in the coming years. Composting is the key to all this; that and the rotted manure but before those can be applied the site needs raising and other than digging it over then applying the top dressings not much is going to change.

Perhaps digging it all over with the drainage ditches being put in place first will go some way and then applying the top dressing, this would raise the level and if the paths/drainage is put in first this would further aid the drainage of the site. But there are some areas which are just so low that there is no other choice than to fill them in with bark chips. One size does not fit all and it certainly will not work on this much neglected site. Onwards and upwards…oh well it looks like rain again now….

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