Topic: Should I? Clearing allotment

[Whatever next?]

Just got an allotment, I'm still waiting for the contract to be returned after signing - no keys etc yet.

It's overgrown with grass only,from what I can see. I was thinking of reducing the grass with a petrol mower (so I can see) then hiring a turf cutter for the day £35. After this (and seeing even more) plonking a rotavator on it.

Having removed turf in our garden (by spade) to make flower beds I thought the above might well work for me on the allotment.

What are your opinions please. Thanks

[manicscousers]

Hiya, whatever next, welcome to the site..lifting the turf and turning it over in a heap, covering it and leaving it to break down gives you lovely soil to return to your plot , also, the grass you cut will be great added to your compost heap  :)

[Whatever next?]

Hi Manicscousers and thanks for the welcome!

Lifting all that turf won't be easy but I think it will be easier than cutting and struggling by hand. I've bought a petrol mower, self propelled grassbag etc for £23 on ebay so I won't lose much if I break it! The turf cutter is £35 with on-line discount so all I need now is a rotavator which I intend to sell once the allotment is sorted.

I am hoping that not too many weeds will re-appear once this is done and all (or almost all) my allotment will be ready for use fairly soon. If not, then at least I tried.

[dtw]

If it's couch grass, then you will need to dig it all out, including every bit of root.
If it's 'normal' grass, then you should be ok.

Dig up a bit and if there are stringy roots with the normal roots, then it's couch.


I also found a grass couch when looking for that piccy.

[Robert_Brenchley]

It's unlikely to be nice lawn turf that you can just lift. You may well find yourself dtruggling with couch, but whatever, get it up, pile it and cover the pile with black plastic till the New year. Then you can spread it again. Alternatively, big a little and get all the roots out. Cover the rest with black plastic and plant something through holes in it. After a year, most of the couch, apart from the roots attached to whatever comes up through the holes, will be gone.

[RobinOfTheHood]

You can defeat even couch grass with a rotavator, but you need to do it at least 3 times at 3 week intervals to kill off the roots. Doing it once will only clear it for a month or so.

In other words, if it's your own rotavator, go for it, but if you have to hire one you'd be better off using glyphosate or a spade.... :)

[Pesky Wabbit]

Doesn't rotovating just chop up bindweed & couch roots into LOTS of smaller pieces, each one becoming a new plant.

I thought rotovating was only good for "clean" plots.

[RobinGriffiths]

When we got our plot, it was a combination of long grass, dock and brambles. A fork lifted the dock and brambles, and a scythe got the grass (some of it couch) to a reasonable  length. I then lifted the grass with a fork in 10" x 6" slabs, turned the slabs upside down and gave them a good hammering with the fork. A combination of this with a good shake separates quite a bit of soil from the plant material. The remaining grass leaves and roots were placed in a big pile and covered with an old carpet. By the end of autumn, this had rotted away into a nice soil mixture which was placed back on the plot.

I wasn't too concerned about leaving roots in the soil, as these were dug out later prior to sowing.

Although it sounds laborious, I don't remember it being that bad (it was 5 years ago), and at least you don't loose a lot of topsoil for the first season.

[manicscousers]

hiya, robin, welcome to the site, sounds like you've got really good soil  :)

[davyw1]

That grass always brings back memories of hard work.
My solution was to dig it out taking as much soil as i could with it, then a big fire making a Kiln with the grass and soil. When i made the next Kiln the soil from the first fire went on top of the second. I would then riddle the centre of the fire when it got cool then start again. This way i was not waisting soil.

[Robert_Brenchley]

With that approach you burn a lot of the organic matter out of the soil, and lose the goodness as you do it. You also lose all the organic matter in the grass and weeds you burn, which could be used if you compost them.

[artichoke]

I recommend bagging up the couch grass and buttercup for a year or two. The plastic bags (old feed bags etc) look terrible, but it is very satisfying to tip them out again eventually, full of nutritious dead roots etc.

[saddad]

That's how I deal with it too Artichoke.
 :)

[Kea]

Yes and you can use the bags of weeds to weight down carpet or polythene or weed suppressant fabric.

[Whatever next?]

I bought an old petrol mower off Ebay for £20 so if I damage it the most it has cost me is that £20. I also bought a rotavator (not so cheap) so I can go over it as many times as I like (or dislike). I've still to get the keys to the allotment but have the full contract back from the council now.

I think I will try a couple of different depths with the turf cutter and see what it leaves in the soil. It will cut up to 35mm in depth. If I don't like the results then out with the spade and painkillers :)

Thanks for all your replies. I'll let you know the outcome

[Robert_Brenchley]

My approach with couch grass and buttercup, if I haven't got too much of it, is to sling it in the daleks and forgt it. It never survives. If the quantity is too great, I pile it and eventually cover the pile with black plastic.

[RobinGriffiths]

We've just bought a bin type incinerator - it burns better and takes less space than a bonfire. I've been putting a fire in this with some scrap wood/prunings etc., then bunging multiple small batches of buttercup, dandelion and bindweed roots on the fire.

[Si D]

My first appraoch with the couch grass was to dig up turfs, through each one down onto the shaft of my spade to weaked it, then shake vigorously to seperate weed from soil.  The weed and clups of soil were then thrown to back of plot (I'm building a little fort  ;D )

This method works but takes time and effort.  At the other end I've just done the area with weed killer and will be rotovating this week, now that the roots are all dead.  Although I'd like to be organic I think it more important that I actually manage to grow something, so am allowing myself a single use of wed killer just to get myself started.

[Whatever next?]

I like the quick kill idea of weedkiller. I think I'll take the wife along, if I can get her to give the grass one of her looks - it'll be dead in no time! ;D

[the_plotter]

I know this sounds terrible but in our allotments when someone new takes over an overgrown plot the one thing that always works is spraying the area with glyphosate (roundup) once all the couche grass dies off go over it with a flame gun. You are left with black ground and then you can dig in manure and build raised beds. As for paths old carpets cut into 30 inch widths or 4 inches of bark chippings, which can be obtained from your local council if they have a tree squad, most councils have a need to get rid of green waste. If you do not want to spray try putting down a cover of black polythene or old carpets, woolen is best as nylon contains more chemicals than glyphosate. Uncover the bit you are digging and make sure you fork out every bit of pernicious weeds or they will regrow. A good way of clearing ground covered in weeds is to rotovate then cover the ground in black polythene, every 15 inches cut a x and plant a potato it takes about 6 months to kill off the worst of the weeds so when forking out the spuds most of the weeds have died off.

      The Plotter