I'd made a resolution to get up to the allotment every week this year, even if I didn't do very much, but when I got ill mid-Feb that fell apart, and I started to miss weeks. My aim was to dig it, the best I can, and get it dug for planting season. Progress has been slow:
I had too much waste grass to rely on the couch-grass drowning (though that's still happening in the trug above) so I've made turf heaps. They'll be rotten with couch grass, and they're on top of bags of weeds in black plastic bags left behind my my predecessor. They're decayed now, and the weeds have broken out and covered the heaps. I'm covering the lot with wrong-way-up turfs, but I think it'll need something structural to contain the heaps.
I've got beanpoles I've been cutting from the native hedges I planted in friends' gardens - you can see some in the picture below but I have more - and these could shore up the turf heap I think. Also visible in this picture is one of my predecessor's tarpaulins. Above you can see the remnants of a blue one, very decayed, that I still haven't dug up entirely yet. The weeds suppressed them in the end.
The biggest surprise was finding a paving base in the rough long grass at the top of the plot. There was broken glass, so I'm guessing a greenhouse. Tempting to put one back in again. Or maybe this is my shed? There were runs under the waste wood that had been used to level the base, suggestive of furry occupants - but now I've cleared the area, it's going to be a lot less attractive to them.
Next job is to dig up the rest of the grass and start warming the soil. It's a very rough dig so far, too, so a second dig at least. The collapsed grow-house is finding the area too windy. Plastic and wood not cutting it, sadly, and my attempts to pin it with tent pegs or weight it with paving stones fell foul of its sail-like construction. But maybe I could shelter and stabilise it by backing it onto the turf pile?
Next up, hefting up all those random paving stones, rearranging them into weeding tracks across the plot and digging in the ant nests underneath. That'll put structure on the scrubland, at least. The leftover kitchen bits can go in a stack at the back till I figure out how to persuade them into being raised beds, I guess. Lifting the tarpaulin and disposing of the rubbish.
The waste disposal and potting area is a bit nascent, as it stands. The couch grass disposal tube has now been complemented by a weed pile next to it full of dead overgrowth mostly. It'll become some kind of haycock at some point I suppose.
You'd think this couldn't possibly grow food, and mostly you would be right. Horseradish and Sage have pretty much been the sum of my harvest for the last couple of months. But summer is coming, and the plot is clearing, slowly but steadily, and at this time of the year I don't have to feel bad about destroying beautiful wilderness. I can just look over my plot and think: tired, in need of a refresh.
I had too much waste grass to rely on the couch-grass drowning (though that's still happening in the trug above) so I've made turf heaps. They'll be rotten with couch grass, and they're on top of bags of weeds in black plastic bags left behind my my predecessor. They're decayed now, and the weeds have broken out and covered the heaps. I'm covering the lot with wrong-way-up turfs, but I think it'll need something structural to contain the heaps.
I've got beanpoles I've been cutting from the native hedges I planted in friends' gardens - you can see some in the picture below but I have more - and these could shore up the turf heap I think. Also visible in this picture is one of my predecessor's tarpaulins. Above you can see the remnants of a blue one, very decayed, that I still haven't dug up entirely yet. The weeds suppressed them in the end.
The biggest surprise was finding a paving base in the rough long grass at the top of the plot. There was broken glass, so I'm guessing a greenhouse. Tempting to put one back in again. Or maybe this is my shed? There were runs under the waste wood that had been used to level the base, suggestive of furry occupants - but now I've cleared the area, it's going to be a lot less attractive to them.
Next job is to dig up the rest of the grass and start warming the soil. It's a very rough dig so far, too, so a second dig at least. The collapsed grow-house is finding the area too windy. Plastic and wood not cutting it, sadly, and my attempts to pin it with tent pegs or weight it with paving stones fell foul of its sail-like construction. But maybe I could shelter and stabilise it by backing it onto the turf pile?
Next up, hefting up all those random paving stones, rearranging them into weeding tracks across the plot and digging in the ant nests underneath. That'll put structure on the scrubland, at least. The leftover kitchen bits can go in a stack at the back till I figure out how to persuade them into being raised beds, I guess. Lifting the tarpaulin and disposing of the rubbish.
The waste disposal and potting area is a bit nascent, as it stands. The couch grass disposal tube has now been complemented by a weed pile next to it full of dead overgrowth mostly. It'll become some kind of haycock at some point I suppose.
You'd think this couldn't possibly grow food, and mostly you would be right. Horseradish and Sage have pretty much been the sum of my harvest for the last couple of months. But summer is coming, and the plot is clearing, slowly but steadily, and at this time of the year I don't have to feel bad about destroying beautiful wilderness. I can just look over my plot and think: tired, in need of a refresh.
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