[Charityuk]

Hello,

First day on our new allotment today It is 5 rods and has been abandoned for 2 years. Soil is London Clay.  The lady who showed us round the site said to build raised beds, and most plots have these. However, our next door neighbour, who has 4 plots, said that is silly, he rotavates and sprays and thinks the soil is really good.  So we are now very confused! Definitely don;t want to use chemicals as we are doing this with small children (7 and 4).

Weed-wise it is not too bad I think. A few brambles but mostly grass. Plus lots of 3 foot high shoots which apparently are regrowth from the roots of ornamental plum trees incompletely removed by previous tenant when he quit.  Under the grass we found ancient carpet and membranes, so once the top layer of stuff is cleared we can just roll up and remove these. We did about 1/8 of the plot fairly swiftly today like this but underneath was a rather gross mass of thick yellow-white roots, all surface and easily removed. From the plum trees? Can't go deep as they hit the clay?

So - now what? Carry on like this? Buy a wheelbarrow to help, get a shed, evenually build beds? How? Fill them with what? we have some chicken manure from home and access to a mountain of fresh horse manure on the site.

Oh and apparently there is a serious fox problem. What are the implications of this?

[Nikkithefoot]

The thick yellow/ white roots just under the surface of what you had cleared could well be dormant bindweed or convolvulus. It needs to be removed carefully in its entirety otherwise a small piece will regrow and cause problems later on for you. If they are more like piano wire and don't break easily it could be couch grass roots which are just as bad IMHO. Either drown them for a few weeks before putting on your compost heap or put them in a bag and take them to the tip.

As the season goes on you might want to consider using glyphosate to kill the weeds before they get too bad. I used it sparingly on my plot when I first got it to get a head start and haven't used it since. I now hand weed and hoe regularly.

Carpet might well be tangled with the roots of the current weeds / vegetation and not be as easy to remove in places as you might hope. Personally I think the stuff should be banned from allotments.

Clear and sow as you go. That way you will keep the motivation going. Try and use as much well rotted manure as you can get your hands on. Feeding the soil will pay dividends in the long run and improve it as well. Clay soil can be a pain to work with initially but once improved would be my soil of choice. Moisture and nutrient retaining for one thing!! My sandy soil leaches nutrients everytime it rains, and dries out for a pastime in the summer. It has got a bit better though with regular thick layers of cow manure.

Only grow what you know you will eat for the first couple of years, gradually add in different veg to see if you like it.

WRT the foxes they will likely dig up what you plant. Using chicken manure or chicken manure pellets might just attract them all the more. You will need to protect your crops against foxes by netting, or other means of covering.

Good luck

[Charityuk]

Ack, I think it is bindweed, from looking at images. Are we allowed to use rude words on this site?!

Not sure what to do next now.  It'll be over the entire plot, its very dense. 

To plant, I have a dwarf apple tree currently in a pot in the back garden, some seed potatoes and I think I have courgettes and runner bean plugs on order. I forget, they were to go in the back garden in containers as we didn;t expect to get the allotment this year.   I could still do them at home I guess.  Very daunted right now.

[Dantheman]

i'm still quite new to it all myself, my advice would be get help if you can (you supplie the bbq they help with the job of clearing, if not don't try to do too much in one go very disheartening, try to think of what it will be not what it is

[ulsterfairy]

Congrats on getting a plot!!

Ours was empty for around 5 yrs - we have lots of bindweed and couch grass   as well as brambles and nettles to name a few.  We cut down what we could, removed all the carpets left by previous tenants (Not an easy job), cleared all that we could of the surface roots and covered all of it, pulling back bit by bit as we had the time to clear.

This is our second season of having the plot (I was pregnant when allocated the plot so its this year we are really getting stuck into it).  We had a few moments of thinking how do we make a start on such a big task  , but with that approach we managed to clear enough space to grow some potato's, cabbage, leeks, runner beans and sweetcorn oh and beetroot on what we cleared.   very satisfying :happy:

Best advise I can give from experience on the bindweed and couch grass is to get as much root up as you can.  The bindweed is a bit relentless even if covered so you will find it peeping out at the sides looking for light and the roots go pretty deep as well any bit left will grow.  We wanted to avoid weedkillers but did resort to round up finally towards the end of the summer.  We put in plenty of time digging to lift roots and weeding every time anything popped up.  Tho bindweed is a bit fidally between crops because of its roots!!

This year on the ground worked on last year, there is defnitely less evidence of bindweed roots, so we plan to leave it a few weeks to see what comes up and either dig up what we can or use round up again depending on the quantity.

There are others on the forum that will know loads more, but thought Id share our experience.  Dont get disheartened focus on getting a bit of ground cleared ready for planting!! It really perked me up knowing I was going to the plot to tend some veg and not just weeding and digging!!

 

[Charityuk]

TY -  we can only do aout 1.5 hours at a time because the kids can't take any more than that! They were great little helpers though and picked up most of the litter (lots of bottles and cans, yuck). 

Getting 1/6 of the plot to bare earth in 1.5 hours is pretty good I think, although of course we did start with the easiest bit. 

Plan for next Saturday - buy a lightweight wheelbarrow, do more clearing and remember to take a spade and bin bags this time, see what else we find.

[catweazle]

glyphosate, kills twitch sone dead. bindweed takes a few goes.

just be glad you havent got mares tail 

[Christine]

You are absolutely right to do the clearing first. Even if you only get the place cleared properly in the first season you will have achieved a great deal.

Don't plant anything long term (strawberry beds, herb beds, raspberry canes) till you have beaten back the couch and the bindweed.

Get yourselves together with a compost heap (NOT USING COUCH OR BINDWEED) as you will need lots of it to work into the soil to make it easier to use. Get to know friends and neighbours - beg grass and kitchen peelings, privet hedge prunings of the light sort, plain cardboard, spent compost from hanging baskets, dead and end of season bedding plants and such like for your compost heap. My favourite set of instructions for compost making are here.

Get onto freecycle and get a water butt if you can - free is good.

You will find that clay is productive soil as you have been told (yep I have some of the best myself so know the story). Watch what other people grow that does well in the area but only grow what you want to eat. Don't forget that you will need to use some fertiliser before you plant things (growmore or fish blood and bone or chicken pellets).

[Charityuk]

Ty - what do you mean by chicken pellets exactly? We do have chicken manure mixed with shredded paper and green waste from our home garden, but someone else said that will encourage the foxes?

The foxes have actually made dens (earths) in the heap of horse manure that a local stables delivers to the site monthly. Amazing.

Oh and should we mix in sand when filling raising beds? I'm finding conflicting stuff on the web, but we do have a whole dustbin full of sand (left over from long-gone kids sandpit) and would love to do something useful with it! Our actual garden is already very sandy despite being only a mile away from the allotment, thanks to a huge hill. 

[Charityuk]

More googling -  looks like we do have a bit of couch grass, not too bad, but no horse/marestail, phew. Have never seen that before actually -  is it common in the SE?

[catweazle]

More googling -  looks like we do have a bit of couch grass, not too bad, but no horse/marestail, phew. Have never seen that before actually -  is it common in the SE?

you can have mine if you want!

it tends to grow best in damp areas so if your plots well drained you should be OK

[Charityuk]

What a kind offer, but I think I'll keep the bindweed.

[Christine]

Ty - what do you mean by chicken pellets exactly? We do have chicken manure mixed with shredded paper and green waste from our home garden, but someone else said that will encourage the foxes?

That chicken manure mixed with shredded paper and green waste should be allowed to rot down and used as compost which you can dig in to improve that nice clay of yours. We do that on our plots with pigeon manure mixed in with green waste on our compost heaps. Some of the pigeon keepers around my plot put their pigeon droppings to rot in a heap and use it as manure when it has rotted down a bit so that it isn't too strong for the plants. If you have chickens you can do the same with your chicken droppings.

I get chicken pellets in large tubs which I use as a fertiliser instead of Growmore (cos it's cheaper) because there is intense competition for pigeon manure and also the horse manure from the horses at the end of the road.