Topic: 2 lottie newbies

[joji]

Hello  :)

My name is Jill and my OH is John. If any of you guys think you have taken on too much you should have seen our lottie 3 weeks ago.

Our lottie is the size of a full sized football pitch with a small wood inside it.

We are very lucky though as this lottie is just at the back of our house. It has had 3 owners since we moved here and NONE of them ever looked after it. Seemed like too much hard work for them I think.

We took it on 3 weeks ago and it was so bad that we had to cut our way through thick brambles just to get to the gate to get in.

3 weeks of hard work on and off we can see the fence at the other side now. We had to miss a bit for the moment as one of the trees has a wasps nest in it but as soon as they go that will be pruned and de brambled too.

We found an apple tree that looks like it hasn't had apples on it for a long time. The grass in places was about 3 - 4 feet high  and there was a lot of strange plants that we had no idea what they were the stems looked like thick green bamboo but the leaves were heart shaped. Cut all of them down anyway. ;D

Can't wait till we get the extra long extention lead down to use the strimmer next week. That will make such a difference.

Brambles are the worst thing to get rid of in the lottie as it is growing like a mat through out the whole place right across all of it, all points of the compass.

We will post some pics of it next week.

We are so glad that we stumbled across this site as you guys all seem to have your heads screwed on the right way
Any advice would be greatfully recived.

We have gone through some of the site already and addopted some of your tips and ideas.

thanks

John & Jill  :)

[wardy]

Heart shaped leaves, thick stems.  Hope it's not the dreaded knotweed which someone else on here is doing battle with.  Have a search on here as it's been discussed over the past few days and there is a link

Happy lottying and welcome  :)

[joji]

Thanks Wardy :)

No it isn't knot weed I know what that is lol. The stems are like bamboo there segmented and hollow but green with red spots on them.

[bupster]

Knotweed was my first thought too, glad it's not and welcome, though I'm pretty new to this place too. You must post pictures - the size of a football pitch? Wow! :D

Good luck clearing it, my 16 sq m of brambles seems like child's play in comparison. :)

[Merry Tiller]

The stems are like bamboo there segmented and hollow but green with red spots on them

That sounds very like knotweed to me

[joji]

Sorry Guys after googling it I think your right. I thought knotweed and bindweed were the same thing ::) Lucky that it is only at the bottom end and a small part of the plot so not too bad. Have burned all what we have cut down. We dug a pit to burn everything as the grass there is like hay and has to be raked out with a grass rake. Great for fire lighting tinder though. :)

[supersprout]

From the description it sounds like what the old boys on the plot call 'Willow Weed' :o and say you can never get rid of it  :P I am using the no-dig method (my son says this means he digs whilst I watch) ;D so I just tug it out of the beds when it comes up ::)

[spacehopper]

Hello there! Sounds like you have made a great start.  :)

[joji]

From the description it sounds like what the old boys on the plot call 'Willow Weed' :o and say you can never get rid of it  :P I am using the no-dig method (my son says this means he digs whilst I watch) ;D so I just tug it out of the beds when it comes up ::)

We have got that in there too. But the stuff I am on about has little white flowers  at the top not purple so I think it is knotweed. :)

[joji]

Hello there! Sounds like you have made a great start.  :)

Thanks  :)

[amphibian]

A football pitch, are you serious?

A football pitch is 1-2.6 acres, that is huge. I would kill for that much land.

Are you allowed to keep livestock? If so a couple of pigs would do a great job clearing the plot.

How much do they charge you for that much land?

[joji]

No  Amphibian lol

Not joking . It is the size of a footie pitch NOT a stadium !!!!!!
 The only livestock we can have are chickens no cockrels. We are paying £40.20 per year for the lottie. But after all the hard work and when the council bloke comes round and sees what we have done so far it might go up lol

[reedos]

Good luck with the knotweed, if you crack it let me know. If a council bloke comes bend his lug repeatedly about it in fact bend the councils lug about it any way they might come and sort it out for you.
Saying that with a plot the size a football pitch you might have enough space to ignore it for a bit. :D

[Robert_Brenchley]

Don't ignore knotweed whatever you do; do something to it, even if it's only cutting it once a month, which would weaken it eventually. The only thing I've ever seen really work on it is, unfortunately, glyphosate.

[RosieM]

Hi and welcome,

I would also kill for that much space!

As to the knotweed, I believe people are injecting glyphosate into the void in the stems using a syringe with some degree of success. Someone here is bound to have tried it.  :)

Keep at it as leaving it be can only make it worse.

RosieM

[wardy]

My lotty is footy pitch dimensions (well looks like it once the weeds are chopped down)  We didn't realise how big it would be once cleared and we were shocked  :o  The the realisation of what you've undertaken becomes all too clear  ;D  the other half of the plot is not in this pic  :)

[joji]

We have no intention of the knotweed getting the better of us either :).

I promised some pics so I went down today in the rain and took some.  This is what it looks like at the moment :)















On pic 5 is the area that we cleared of the knotweed. You can still see some growing on the other side of the fence. The wooded area we have been told by the council can't be cut down just cleared and pruned. :(

[aquilegia]

Wow!

Another one here who would kill for that much land, especially at that price! Although, I'd also have to kill for the money that Mr Aqui and I earn each year as you can't possibly keep a job and work that much land. (Please don't tell me you do!)

Looks like a hard task - but well worth it!

[bupster]

The size of it! I should invest in shares in a black plastic making company, no way will you get that all under cultivation this winter. Is that a shed in the picture as well? I could cheerfully live on that amount of land; I'd turn into a peculiar hermit wearing ancient tweed and shouting incomprehensibly at small children.

Ahem.

[wardy]

I do that already Bupster  ;D  It's funny how getting an allotment makes you wear strange clothes.  It's like an unconscious thing.  One minute normal clothes the next minute you're on the lotty with a bright pink floppy hat with block dots on  ;D  I digress ...

Fantastic patch you got there Joji  You can keep it  ;D ;D  I can just envisage chickens on that.  Bit of shade by the trees.  Perfick  :)