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