Topic: new allotment, clay soil, weeding, covering...

[incredible edible]

hello all, new here and looking for good advice...

Just got a new allotment, covered in weeds, no surprise there mainly willow herb, dock, nettles and blackberry bushes. You may have noticed its been raining and this has shown me the nature of the soil which is quite clay like!

Im thinking of, and have just started to pull up what i can first (including roots) then maybe strimming down the rest, mainly the borders, then digging up the docks and dandelioins when its drier, if that ever happens, then covering whats left. Im thinking of having part raised beds and part not!

So, some questions,

Whats the best material for covering, i hear its black permeable plastic?

Is it worth covering it all, or, can i leave the areas planned for raised beds covered for less time.

Should I rotovate, my mates got one, or will that add to the problem with weeds?

Any tips on improving clay soil?

That'll do for now, tons more questions tho! Any advice appreciated

PS i dont want to use weed killer etc  Cheers .  :)

[Lauren S]

Hello and welcome to A4A.

Sounds like you already know what you are going to do  :D.
My one little piece of advice would be to dig out as much of the evil weeds as you can first.
If you are tempted to rotorvate your patch without removing those evils... basically you are chopping them up and encouraging them to multiply  :o
The patch might look instantly cleared but you will regret it, for sure  ::). It will be so much harder and time consuming to then get rid of them  :'(.

You have many months to be able to take your time to de-weed before planting starts next year.

Good luck and don't forget to take lots of *Before* and *After* pics.

We love to see pics on A4A too  ;D

Lauren  :)

[manicscousers]

Hi, incredible, welcome to the site  ;D
when we started, we covered the raised bed areas with very thick card, piled up well rotted muck on top, then weedcontrol on that, meant we had beautiful, crumbly soil to plant into first year.
the card rotted off over winter and the weeds died off underneath, obviously we'd got rid of nasty weeds first  ;D
good luck, little and often, look after your back  :)

[saddad]

Hi incredible and welcome to the site. Clay may be harder to work but it holds onto nutrients best of all, and if they are stinging nettles they are a sign of really rich soil... so clear those areas first to gie yourself some good early starter areas next year!  ;D

[incredible edible]

hi all thanks very much for your responses, it really helps, and Im learning there is so much to learn! Its great!  :D :D

[1066]

Hi Incredible

So the plot is overgrown and you have clay – welcome to allotment life!
I took an allotment last Feb, part of it was covered with an old carpet which had helped to kill off all the grass etc, but hadn't killed off the nasty weeds and brambles. But because the grass etc had died back it was much easier to dig and clear. Having said that I was faced with huge lumps of clay – enough to consider a new career in pottery! I then dug in as much manure as I could feasibly get hold of, and basically grew loads of spuds.
Now the spuds are out and being eaten (!!!!) I've started digging it again – to get out some of the more persistent weeds etc and prepare the ground for autumn and spring sowing. The great news is that the soil is in so much better condition just after 1 load of manure and 1 season of digging. The weeds weren't too bad – mainly small perennial ones and some of the brambles and bind weed coming through, but hopefully next year it will be even less.
It's given me so much encouragement to see what you can achieve in a relatively short time, albeit with a lot of digging. I covered the rest of my plot with tarpaulins (after building work so they were free) and will dig these areas over this winter ready for more spuds in spring
So basically – yes to covering (anything you can get hold of is better than nothing), yes to manure and compost, yes to digging but no to rotavating (I've heard too many horror stories)
Good luck!

[Lottie103]

Hello from another newbie :) Sounds like we're in a similarish position so no words of wisdom from me. We took on our plot a couple of weeks ago & have been mostly clearing brambles since then & are now ready to start digging proper. We have clay too so any digging at the moment just results in the hole filling with water  ::) We're (naively, no doubt....) hoping to be in a position to use all our plot by the time growing season comes round again. & hoping not to use chemicals either - we've done it before on a smaller scale, but we'll see......
Lynn

[saddad]

Welcome to the site Lottie 103, we work on clay too but it's worth it in the end...  :)

[incredible edible]

hiya, good to hear all the comments. Im currently digging up all the docks and cutting back brambles then hoping to strim the edges down as they are massively overgrown. then thinking of just covering the lot over winter and maybe begin weeding again feb time? in the meantime i can be building compost heaps, sheds and fences etc...

does this sound mad??  ;D

Ive started digging up an area but cant decide whether to try to grow potatoes in it  as im worried that i dont quite know how many weeds are skulking away in it? Also, going on a bit now, but, can i use all these weeds on the compost, will the heat kill the seeds??

many thanks, good luck too Lottie

[Vortex]

If you're on clay then you'll want to go for raised beds - one of my plots is on a site that used to be called "Brick fields" for a very good reason.
Manure, digging, and if you can afford it sharp sand are the answers. My blog has details of what I've done and how things have progressed on my 3 plots (1/2 allotment - clay, 1/2 allotment heavy loam, veg plot - silt) http://vortexs-veg-patch.blogspot.com/
I had hoped to make more progress on the clay plot now but the rain is just water logging it at the moment.

[thifasmom]

Ive started digging up an area but cant decide whether to try to grow potatoes in it  as im worried that i dont quite know how many weeds are skulking away in it? Also, going on a bit now, but, can i use all these weeds on the compost, will the heat kill the seeds??

many thanks, good luck too Lottie

if you are worried about putting weeds on the compost heap, you could always stick in a black bag and allow the to go to mush/ in a large tub of water leave to again turn to mush then throw on heap. i tend to do either to perennial weeds which have what i would call very determine roots >:(. seed heads normally end up on my burn heap.

[1066]

Ive started digging up an area but cant decide whether to try to grow potatoes in it  as im worried that i dont quite know how many weeds are skulking away in it?

I'd give the spuds a go, anything is better than nothing in terms of using the ground. And what with the earthing up you could deal with weeds that reappear at the same time. Besides what else would you use that bit of ground for?

[incredible edible]

Nice one 1066, i think thats the way im going.. dig it up, do the spuds and deal with the weeds, il be there often enough to keep 'em down. Thanks for your help, this is such a good place,  :)

[zaz283]

Hi incredible. Your situation is very similar to mine 3 years ago. My advice is...

* Cover whatever you can't tackle now with carpet, you should get that free from local independent carpet fitter who'll be only too pleased to get rid of it

* Get your first raised beds in & dig within those... gives you immediate structure

* Take the big stuff out as you go but don't worry too much... once you've turned the earth over anything else that pops its head up afterwards will be reasonably easy to pull out so long as you do it regularly

* Strim or mower in between the raised beds & you'll have nice grass paths after a while

* DON'T ROTIVATE... with clay soil it's a waste of time since it's really hard to get deep enough unless you're going to do it many time

Hope this helps... best of luck!

[Larkshall]

* DON'T ROTIVATE... with clay soil it's a waste of time since it's really hard to get deep enough unless you're going to do it many time

My garden is on heavy clay soil, I beg to differ from the above. I get to 10 inches deep with the Mantis tiller after it has been dug a full spit deep. there is no easy way with clay. See my article on clay gardening.

When you use machinery you have to think like a farmer, that means going over it many times to achieve a good tilth. You also have to know when the soil has the right moisture content for tilling.

http://www.erowell.co.uk/Gardening/clay-soil.html

[betula]

I understand you have to be careful with clay soil as you can create a pan. :)

[hopalong]

Hello incredible, thanks for the opportunity to share experiences on this.

I took over my plot in December 2006 and, like yours, it was overgrown with weeds and brambles.  The soil is heavy London clay and full of stones.  I am really glad that I took the time to plan out a 3-year rotation plus a permanent bed and soft fruit area; and, above all, double dig, remove as many bindweed and couch grass roots, mare's tail and brambles as possible, and incorporate lots of manure and compost. This has really paid dividends since. I am very glad that I did not rotovate lots of bits of perennial weed root into the soil.

I burned the perennial weed roots rather than risk composting them.

I found that growing lots of potatoes helped to break down the clay - but maybe that was more to do with the digging and manuring that went into planting the potatoes rather than the potatoes themselves! Incorporating sand and compost into narrow trenches for carrots also worked very well. Covering areas not yet dug with old carpet and/or plastic also made digging easier when I got round to it.

My biggest mistake, like many others before and since, was to try to do too much at once  (and in the depths of winter).

That "Clay Buster" stuff does not work in my experience, and it's expensive. After harvesting my first potato crop, I sowed green manure (field beans mostly) and dug this in. This also seemed to help break down the clay. Even so, I'm still getting a fair number of "bricks" in some places when I dig and am assuming it will be another year or two before I really crack it. I am also finding that brambles are very deep rooted and keep popping up again when you think you've got rid of them.

I am not growing on raised beds, except for a seed bed, but may get round to it in due course.

This is a picture taken in May 07, 5 or 6 months in.
[attachment=1]

[1066]

I found that growing lots of potatoes helped to break down the clay - but maybe that was more to do with the digging and manuring that went into planting the potatoes rather than the potatoes themselves!

 ;D ;D ;D
I'm with you on this one hopalong, I reckon the human intervention involved definitely did more for ground breaking than the spuds!! But the effort was worth it - still eating the spoils  :)

[zaz283]

Fair comment Larksall... I based my experience on when I started. Hired heavy rotivator for a day for £50. Spent the day bouncing about all over my new plot ripping up the surface weeds, but hardly breaking the surface.

But hope you'll agree you can't beat the satisfaction of the manual method with spade.

[flossy]

 Hi incredible,

 Have had my plot for 14mths, I cleared small sections at a time through the winter too and managed to
 rid the soil of couch grass - to encoursge you, I have had very little problem with it since  :D,
The worst situation is having to de-weed over again,  so I used permiable membrain to cover - pegging down with those plastic pegs (Wikos pks of 10 ) then this spring I cut crosses on the membrain and planted my first early spuds.  Had very good results, no weeding  ( hurray )  ;D  and the covering allows
the water in.  Uncovered, dug up pots and replaced cover to plant the butternut squash threw the same holes - oh, while uncovered I fed the soil again.

Hope this has been of use to you,

Floss xxx