[colin120]

Just finished digging and planting/ sowing the first section of my allotment, with Chinese lettuce, leeks, French beans, chicory rossa, little gems, my toms. carrots, chives.

The other half which is still over grown, and  where I have been burning the rubbish CAN I just cover it over and leave it until a later date with tarpaulin or will it just grow out of control again 

[snowdrops]

That's looks great Colin. Yes you can cover over with tarpaulin, it will start to die down if it doesn't get any light. If no rain gets through either it will get very dry & hard to dig, but you could uncover a bit at a time, dig over & cover again.

[m1ckz]

i think your tomato plants will need bigger pots

[mumofstig]

If the bottoms of the pots have been removed, they'll be fine..........................

[simonwatson]

If you use a woven landscape fabric instead of tarp, the rain will pass through just fine. You might also want to put a healthy dose of slug pellets underneath before you cover it (if you use them).

Give it a really good water before you cover it, this will encourage all the weed seeds in there to germinate. They'll then die due to lack of light and you'll have far fewer seeds to germinate in there next year when you start using the ground.

[colin120]

If the bottoms of the pots have been removed, they'll be fine..........................

My toms are not in pots, that's drainage pipe with copper tape around the toms, doing that with all plants, as there are loads & loads of slugs & snails, I don't want to use slug killer.

Also putting  15mm copper pipe around my beds, as I am a plumber by trade using all the old copper I take out of the properties I work in

[Goosegirl]

As Simon says, water it and let the weeds germinate before you cover it. Looks like you've done really well there - good for you!