Topic: Got my lottie yesterday

[Jackie]

When we arrived



As you can see it is wild!! I could have cried when I saw it I really didnt know where to start I am a complete novice with a non gardening other half so we really were at a complete loss. One quick phone call to my lovely Dad got me started, he turned up with a petrol strimmer and my Mum complete with gardening gloves. So with plenty of hard work  half of my lottie has been at least strimmed so you can now see my shed at the other end.

Oh and 1 last thing never try to have a game of eye spy with your 5 year old daughter on an overgrown allotment, the game goes something like this, eye spy with my little eye something beginning with W.........Weeds, and yes you guessed it the only thing she could see were weeds so the game comtinued tike that for quite sometime.


When we left


I am going to see if I can make another dent in some of the weeds shortly I need all the luck in the world, but I am determined I will do this and mine will be the best looking plot there (in a few years :)

[gavin]

Congratulations - there's nothing quite like that feeling of making the first impression!

Good luck - Gavin

[Jesse]

Congratulations Jackie !!  :)  I am really envious, I'm on a waiting list for one expected to be at least a year to wait. I can't see your pictures though  ???

[jo2]

Brilliant news!  Your'll soon be very attached to that patch of weeds!
We've only had ours a few weeks so I undersatnd that horrified feeling on seeing the weeds only too well. What we did to keep spirits up was inially properly cleared one little patch at the end and bunged some veg in it so even though we had so much to do we at least had SOMETHING growing that we put there.

[Columbus]

 :D Hi Jackie,

Your pictures look like ones I took a little over a year ago,
the colours remind me of what I started working with, head high weeds from one end of the plot to the other. Today I have the promise of a harvest of fruit, vegetables and flowers this year and many years to come. I`m still only a beginer but I feel proud of what I`ve achieved. Thank you for posting the photos they are an inspiration to me to continue through the battles with slugs and pigeons (who "harvested" my caulis before I was ready)

Best of luck,

Col  :)

[The gardener]

Don't despair Jackie, many of us have been there!

This was mine March 2002;



This was the same plot, more or less same view on the 10th June this year.



So as you see a little bit of hard work gets you there in the end...........best of luck

[Jackie]

Well I didnt get much done today, I was only there for about 30 mins before my daughter decided she would be ill!! just my look  :( a  poorly 5 year old and I had to come home! I have decided she needs somewhere to play and get out of the sun (and boy did it shine here today  :) so I am going to buy a tent for her tomorrow I am sure she can fill it with little bugs soon enough!!
She has been asleep all afternoon and when she woke up she asked if we could go back to see the butterflys and grasshoppers, so I dare say she will be up all night then be asleep all morning so we may get a few hours there tomorrow afternoon all being well  ::)
I have loads of berry bushes (blackcurrants gooseberrys and other unidentified until I get past the wild evil nettles and thistles to see what they are) and I am hoping that they can be pruned and saved so I can try making loads of jam next year. When is the time to prune these things?
I do hope I will be able to get back there soon and do a little more digging, but as they say these thing are sent here to try us (and boy do 5 year olds do that well  ::) ::) )
Thankyou for all your good luck wishes and one more photo, the kids thought it was great having 6 baby fox cubs living on my allotment, but after the nice man on the plot a few doors down told me how much damage they do I am not so sure!!

[Mrs Ava]

Congrats Jackie, looking great already!  It is amazing what you can achieve when you enjoy what you are doing.  Keep those pictures coming!  ;D

Jesseveve, if you can't see the pics, right click on the red cross, scroll down to properties, click, then highlight the address, which should end in jpg.  Copy this and paste into your address bar, click, and the piccy should appear.  Clear as mud huh!  :-\

[carrot-cruncher]

Congratulations

I only got mine late last year & at first glance I thought I had taken on a grass field!!!!   Now I have things growing which I planted ( which is a great feeling) & I'm slowing clearing the rest of the plot a little at a time.

[tig]

best of luck with ur lottie jackie all the hard work will be repayed .      enjoy.

[Jesse]

Thanks for that EJ!  :D

Jackie, you are very brave! I don't think I would have known where to start.  :o  But looking much much better already, you must have worked hard.

Aaaaw, little fox is so sweet, so lovely to see wildlife about, can't believe he would do any damage!

[eileen]

Jackie,

So glad you've got your lottie.  ;D

It may be hard work but there are soooo many people here who are only too willing to help and advise that you'll soon have it up and running I'm sure.
EJ is a mine of information!! Wouldn't have seen you pics if she hadn't explained how to do it.  8)

Hope your daughter is well enough for you to tackle some more of those weeds tomorrow. Above all - have fun.  :D

Eileen.

[EalingIan]

I got my allotment at the weekend.  170 feet of weed covered sun baked earth in West Ealing.  Beautiful.

I was really excited but also terrified at the amount of work I need to do.  The weeds were as tall as me - and I'm 6'4!

Would it be worthwhile planning out the plot and having smaller plots with walkways between them, as some of the better organised plots seem to have? Or should I just dig up the whole blooming lot and be done with it?

I don't really know where to start with it!  Help!!

[tosh]

Got ours about 8 weeks ago and the best advice I had was - do not try and do it all at once! So little by little, clear a bit plant a bit. Still hard work but a lot more satisfying. We are now taking lettuce, cabbage and spring onions off. Its great. Good luck

[Jackie]

Hi all well we do have mud under those weeds, and I had to take a photo to proove it!!!



now I need some advice, the patch that has taken 2 full days to rough dig was dug over 2 years ago (so some nice friendly lottie man told me) but the rest of it has not been dug for approx 10 years and there is no way I can get anything to even pierce the top, let alone to get it dug over  ??? what is the best way to go about this?
Please help and thanks for all the advice so far
Jackie

[Derekthefox]

Good luck Jackie, and don't be put off by the comments about the foxes. They don't do any harm to the allotment, apart from occasional scratching for worms. I have foxes on my allotment (hence my name), and they give me no trouble at all. Occasionally I see them, but they keep themselves to themselves mainly.

Concerning digging the hard bit . . . this method has worked for me, my allotment had been similarly neglected.
First wait until it has rained sufficiently to soak the ground (this may be in Autumn). Then using a fork, drive the tines in about half their length, standing on the fork if necessary, and wobble the fork backward and forward to loosen the ground. Don;t try and dig it yet. Move along and continue like this all the way along your row, then work another row until you have covered a suitable area.
Come back on another day, and turn over what you have just loosened, the ground will now break down over the winter. You can attempt to remove some of the large weed roots, but getting the small stuff out is a pain when the soil is very damp.
Once again good luck, your plot looks great.

[gavin]

Hi Jackie - have you got a clay soil?  

My new plot is heavy clay, similarly undug for many years.  And most of it - set like concrete!  I tried digging the first couple of visits - but, fully a week older and wiser (???), I'm now just skimming off the top 2-3 inches of turf.  Even the couch grass can't get any further in than that.   (No, don't anybody tell me different - please!  My couch grass is gone - and that's the end of it!)

Come autumn, when the soil is a bit easier to work, and I have access to lots of horse manure, I'll dig the beds I've skimmed - dig in lots, and mulch.  

At least I'll know where I'm digging, and I will have hacked out the worst of the bramble roots - and have one ENORMOUS compost heap turf pile for next year (?).  I've done less than a quarter - and it's already 2 metres long by 1 high

There are a few odd bits where the clay is a bit softer, and can be broken into a tilth - well, sort of smaller clumps.  And I'm getting some mushroom compost soon, so I hope I'll get a couple of beds for my leeks and winter brassicas.

All best - Gavin

[Mrs Ava]

All I will say is, my plot is dug, and I can hardly penetrate the ground at the moment due to lack of rain!  I need to earth up my fennel, and I can barely move dust, let alone earth!  If you can, water a patch really well, I guess the evening before you want to try and dig, and then next day hopefully the water will have soften the ground a bit and you can break through.  Good luck.  ;D

Tut, typical, just re-read the messages and have seen that I missed the posts by Gav and Derek.  Repeating old advice then, but I do think that it is only because the ground is so dry that it is so hard.

[Lavender]

I've got clay as well, and the allotment hadn't been worked for several years when we got it.  After much hard work, we've got it all planted out this year, and most things are doing fine.  The area round the compost heap (fondly known as the utility area  ;D) was well trampled, hadn't been dug over at all and was like cement.  I did the watering trick - plenty of it, let it soak in till next day, repeat if necessary.  Still a bit of effort to get spade in, but once I was through the top inch or so, underneath was quite damp and I ended up with a 'fine tilth' - couldn't believe it.  That was 3 or 4 weeks ago, and I now have healthy looking peas and dwarf beans beaming at me.  Another small miracle  :)