I've made it up to the allotment for a midweek twilight digging frenzy every week so far this year, and I've managed to clear a space about the size of king-sized bed. Well, when I say clear, it's not topped by couch and sour grass any more, but there's a still a lot of weed material in it. The weed material is mostly my persistent weed, Couch Grass.
Sadly, there's not a lot you can do with couch grass. I tried taking a bag of it to the tip, and nearly broke the Hi-Vis who came over to help me with the bag. Dear god, the biomass of the stuff. I also felt like I was losing top-soil, and I don't like that feeling, so I feel I must somehow break it down and get it back into the soil. But it's too fibrous and vigorous to compost in standard bins (famously it will resprout from any root fragment) so I'm trying a few other things.
Water drowning - a permaculture approach where you drown your perennial weeds in water for a fortnight before adding them to your compost - produces amazing smells. Seriously, I may need to apologise to my allotment neighbours. And the weight thing is still a problem - getting a trug-full of sodden drowned couch grass roots into the compost thing was taxing, and got some of the rough brew "compost tea" on me, ugh. I'm also not going to believe it's actually killed the couch grass roots until they start breaking down, which will take a really long time because they're really fibrous.
Turf stacking has may have happened on the allotment already. But the a rough bank along the back left hand side may just have been abandoned black plastic bags full of weeds as when I stuck an experimental spade in I hit a lot of black plastic. And also got told to F off by a bee. Some suspicious holes in the bank suggest there may also be larger furry occupants. Either way, I've started to cover the top of the bank with upended turf, in the approved way. Excluding light is approved, but having spent almost half an hour yesterday attempting to extricate a very grassed-in rotted tarpaulin from the ground, I'm feeling quite negative about putting more plastic garbage into a plot already heavily #blessed with the stuff (I also dug out some rotted surgical gloves, a mass of plastic netting nailed roughly to some chunks of wood and yes, more horseradish). That said, I do have some weed proof membrane, and if I use it carefully....
So yes, digging the plot is the main job for winter, while the weeds are less vigorous. I even found a very nice basic instruction sheet. There's a suggestion that I might need some manure later but that'll be after clearing the ground. There are a couple of other things I need to do too though:
Sadly, there's not a lot you can do with couch grass. I tried taking a bag of it to the tip, and nearly broke the Hi-Vis who came over to help me with the bag. Dear god, the biomass of the stuff. I also felt like I was losing top-soil, and I don't like that feeling, so I feel I must somehow break it down and get it back into the soil. But it's too fibrous and vigorous to compost in standard bins (famously it will resprout from any root fragment) so I'm trying a few other things.
Water drowning - a permaculture approach where you drown your perennial weeds in water for a fortnight before adding them to your compost - produces amazing smells. Seriously, I may need to apologise to my allotment neighbours. And the weight thing is still a problem - getting a trug-full of sodden drowned couch grass roots into the compost thing was taxing, and got some of the rough brew "compost tea" on me, ugh. I'm also not going to believe it's actually killed the couch grass roots until they start breaking down, which will take a really long time because they're really fibrous.
Turf stacking has may have happened on the allotment already. But the a rough bank along the back left hand side may just have been abandoned black plastic bags full of weeds as when I stuck an experimental spade in I hit a lot of black plastic. And also got told to F off by a bee. Some suspicious holes in the bank suggest there may also be larger furry occupants. Either way, I've started to cover the top of the bank with upended turf, in the approved way. Excluding light is approved, but having spent almost half an hour yesterday attempting to extricate a very grassed-in rotted tarpaulin from the ground, I'm feeling quite negative about putting more plastic garbage into a plot already heavily #blessed with the stuff (I also dug out some rotted surgical gloves, a mass of plastic netting nailed roughly to some chunks of wood and yes, more horseradish). That said, I do have some weed proof membrane, and if I use it carefully....
So yes, digging the plot is the main job for winter, while the weeds are less vigorous. I even found a very nice basic instruction sheet. There's a suggestion that I might need some manure later but that'll be after clearing the ground. There are a couple of other things I need to do too though:
- Find a useful answer for "How many poles?" This is something all the allotment cognoscenti ask the moment you say you have an allotment. This set of allotments were set up in an interstitial space that was going to be re-developed for housing until the local residents realised they could declare it allotments and see off the developers. It would probably make a heartwarming film, but the weird plot shape means all the allotments are funny shapes, so I have no idea.
- Find an accommodation on inconveniencing wildlife. One of the things that kept holding me back last year (and to an extent this winter) is that wildlife was already using my little patch of wasteland. The bees, the birds the foxes and yes, the small furry ones. The wildflowers on my plot last year were amazing. Everything is already being used. But you don't get an allotment not to use it, and the wildlife will chill and adapt. Even the small furry ones might tempt in allotment cat, who has progressed from bolting every time he sees me to staring angrily at me before stalking off
which obviously means he loves mewhich as any fool knows is the beginning of being tame with you. Allotment fox showed his nose last night too (along with allotment kite and allotment crows). - Decide what to do with the garbage. There's garbage in the soil. Old attempts to suppress weeds, random crap, rotted somethings. Is it OK to have an allotment rubbish tip?
All this, and more, coming soon as the nights get lighter and the soil gets clearer.
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