[Folger]

Well the title says it all, we took over our new allotment yesterday, there are four of us sharing it, two families, and I think we have about 150 sqm.

Its next to a new housing estate they are building and the allotment site had a lot of top soil spread over it that they removed for digging the new road.  It is covered in weeds, I did make a start last night and dug a section about 1.5m x 1.5 m trying to pull up and bin as many of the beggers as I could - hard graft thought aint it!

I'm very reluctant to use any weed killer as we want to do this as organically as possible and I respect that the ppl either side of us may not want chemicals in the ground either.

So I'm after some advice as to the best way to weed, is it to do as I'm doing now, lifting the soil a small section at a time and working my way across the whole plot or am I missing a trick?

The small section I have dug has something in the soil, its very twiggy looking, loads of it, gets tangled round my fork in places, I'm wonder if it may be grass from the land they dug up and then dumped on this site - if it is, as long as its organic waste will it just break down or should I try to remove it?  I'm just concerned the more i remove the more soil comes away with it too!

We are planning a fruit cage and we know where our compost and greenhouse will go.  I ordered loads of strawberry plants from T&M on the £1 offer so I'm guessing they will arrive any time soon so our first priority is extending this area I have been digging to plant these.  Is there any special treatment we should give the soil first.  We have access to manure so can dig this but should the ground be left then before we plant in it?  Also do we need to cover these plants and will they fruit next year or year after?

I'm so sosrry for all the questions but we want to start off right!

What is the cut off fpr planting winter cabbage?

Is there anything else we can be planting say October time?

Many thanks everyone

[bigben]

Regarding the clearing - have a look at the article on this site http://www.allotment-garden.org/articles/Clearing_a_New_Allotment.php

Without pics it is hard to id what the twiggy stuff might be your digging up but I would try to keep it together until you can id it in case it is something that is going to continue to grow. You could burn it and get back some of goodness it has or if your not allowed fires then perhaps bag it up and leave it to rot down or bin it.

Cannot help about strawberries as I have not grown them but like you have ordered some for next year.

You could get a bed dug for garlic and winter onions, both of which can go in around October/ Nov time. A lot of the old guys on my site grow these thru weed fabric as it drastically cuts down on the weeding and it sounds like you could do with getting some of your allotment low maintainence to allow you time to get on top of the other bits.

Enjoy!