Topic: Not in the spirit ?

[caroline7758]

Over the last few weeks i have been watching an allotment tenant near me take down a fence to remove a shed in one piece onto a trailer, then get in a mini digger, a skip and most recently a tractor and trailer, to clear and dig his plot. Maybe I'm just jealous, but this seems like cheating to me! Or expensive- though as we're in a farming area he's probably getting mate's rates. I'll be watching with interest to see what he does with the land!

[Obelixx]

Seems eminently sensible to me.  The fun is in the growing and harvesting isn't it?  Not the back breaking digging and clearing and shipping about of compost and manure.

[ancellsfarmer]

Must be a farmer! No farmer these days does manual -if the machine won't fit, its left to Mother (nature).

[Stork]

I watched a similar scene on my site a couple of years ago. They had mini-diggers and all sorts.

They built up the plot with raised beds using lovely railway sleepers and then filled all the beds with many tons of expensive looking topsoil that was delivered to the site.

They even put in put a very nice stone patio for somewhere to sit and admire the thriving veggies and block paved the pathways between all the beds. It was all done to a really high standard of professional landscaping.

In the first year the plot was lightly used. In the second year...nothing.

I'm happy to say I have just taken it over as my second plot!

In my defence my first plot was entirely covered in waist high nettles when I took it over. I did every inch of it by hand so I feel I have earned my easy arrival into plot number 2.

[gwynleg]

Wow Stork. A bit of me would feel it was all a bit done and that it wasn't my own work, but I could certainly live with that! It sounds wonderful - hope they put good quality soil on it. You could be in for a good year.

[markfield rover]

Do you remember Peter? Thoday from a Victorian Kitchen Garden on a recent and worth watching interview on the Horticultural Channel with Sean thingy he said ...The bigger the machinery the more the damage!

[Plot 18]

No machinery can lead to damage to your back
Be careful if you are digging, specially when the weather is cold.

[johhnyco15]

myself id rather do it by hand however i can see  why someone would do it to save time but again in my time on the allotment i can say that normally people who go in like a bull in a china shop rarely last a season or more they just get fed up battling against mother nature  whereas  a more even pace you get to know the plot and soil its a bit like a house you have to live in it first so you can work out what you need rather than what you want before knocking it around  to give a compromise of both lets hope they do a good job and last the test of time

[Obelixx]

Having moved to a new home with a large, neglected garden with large black spaces we're planning on getting a man with a bulldozer to level the intended veggie plot so we can build raised beds and permanent fruit beds and a polytunnel.  Definitely not something I want to create by digging it all with a spade or even a rotavator.  I'm more interested in being able to crop this year.

[johhnyco15]

Having moved to a new home with a large, neglected garden with large black spaces we're planning on getting a man with a bulldozer to level the intended veggie plot so we can build raised beds and permanent fruit beds and a polytunnel.  Definitely not something I want to create by digging it all with a spade or even a rotavator.  I'm more interested in being able to crop this year.

granted however it is your home and your land  so asap is the order of the day allotments in my mind are a little different and all my years of having one as i say as a rule hard and fast means one or maybe 2 seasons

[Obelixx]

I have just been out and measured the intended potager area.  It is almost square and measures about 29m by 25 and there is one slab of concrete with a small shed on it and another at an odd angle and in a daft place that will need to be removed, in an ideal world.   It is currently all hummocky grass and weeds with a fine clump of nettles in the back corner.   No way are we going to do all that by hand as we both have dodgy backs.

[Tee Gee]

I get the feeling I am the odd one out here in so far as I get my greatest satisfaction at the end of the year when I start digging for the next year.

Years ago a few of us pitched in for a rotovator which sounded nice at the time  but I found out very quickly it was not for me.

I found with my30 ft x 5 ft beds the rotovator was too big, my soil was too light so as a consequence it tended to dig in to the light soil to the point it was difficult to pull out then turning it at either end of a five foot wide bed was near impossible.

Give me spade digging every time as this way gives ME total control, apart from the good exercise I find that I can pick out most of the pernicious weeds such as Mares tail & Couch grass as I progress. Add to that, I know my plot is dug to a given depth throughout rather than deep and shallow bits like you can get with a rotovator as it bounces along.

On another note for a similar reason I rarely water my beds with a hose again I have better control in knowing that each of my plants are getting the right amount of water. Added to which I am am not watering the weeds between the plants or creating a nice "skid pan" for the slugs and snails to travel between each of my plants.

OK I here some of you say....but you are retired you have time to do what you do!...a fair point but I worked for the first 20 years of my thirty year tenancy and my attitude to digging and watering has always been the same!

In that time I have had 5 different plots on the site and as I took each one over they were all wildernesses but I fettled them into good plots to a point that with the ones I left each of the new tenants thanked me for setting them off with a nice clean well kept plot.

So I guess it is up to the individual in so far as what do you want from your plot, and how you are going to set about getting it..........me I am a bit of a masochist in so far is my satisfaction comes from the effort I have put in....as I see it;  the more effort I put in them the less effort my plants have to do to  to develop into a good crop.

My motto.....Effort in = Effort Out ( and the reverse is true as well in my experience)

[johhnyco15]

I get the feeling I am the odd one out here in so far as I get my greatest satisfaction at the end of the year when I start digging for the next year.

Years ago a few of us pitched in for a rotovator which sounded nice at the time  but I found out very quickly it was not for me.

I found with my30 ft x 5 ft beds the rotovator was too big, my soil was too light so as a consequence it tended to dig in to the light soil to the point it was difficult to pull out then turning it at either end of a five foot wide bed was near impossible.

Give me spade digging every time as this way gives ME total control, apart from the good exercise I find that I can pick out most of the pernicious weeds such as Mares tail & Couch grass as I progress. Add to that, I know my plot is dug to a given depth throughout rather than deep and shallow bits like you can get with a rotovator as it bounces along.

On another note for a similar reason I rarely water my beds with a hose again I have better control in knowing that each of my plants are getting the right amount of water. Added to which I am am not watering the weeds between the plants or creating a nice "skid pan" for the slugs and snails to travel between each of my plants.

OK I here some of you say....but you are retired you have time to do what you do!...a fair point but I worked for the first 20 years of my thirty year tenancy and my attitude to digging and watering has always been the same!

In that time I have had 5 different plots on the site and as I took each one over they were all wildernesses but I fettled them into good plots to a point that with the ones I left each of the new tenants thanked me for setting them off with a nice clean well kept plot.

So I guess it is up to the individual in so far as what do you want from your plot, and how you are going to set about getting it..........me I am a bit of a masochist in so far is my satisfaction comes from the effort I have put in....as I see it;  the more effort I put in them the less effort my plants have to do to  to develop into a good crop.

My motto.....Effort in = Effort Out ( and the reverse is true as well in my experience)

indeed tg i hand dig all my plots as you know with my trusted border spade i also enjoy the task taking out weed roots as i go 3 plots 16ft x160 ft and all with spinal arthritis it takes me around 3 weeks  then i use my mantis to make seed beds for carrots parsnips i very seldom get a perennial  weed problem this seasons new plot has not got a weed on it yet i know it will but they will be Dealt with swiftly  again an hour of hoeing once a week keeps them all at bay slow and steady in my opinion is the way

[caroline7758]

"An hour of hoeing once a week"- think I'll make that my mantra this year- although an hour a day might be more what mine needs!

[johhnyco15]

"An hour of hoeing once a week"- think I'll make that my mantra this year- although an hour a day might be more what mine needs!

caroline try it you will be surprised just how much you can hoe in an hour    one warning wear gloves an hour can give blisters  trust us southern softies it hurts lol

[Tee Gee]

southern softies

You said it not me! 

Here is one I tried from something I saw on TV.

There was this old fella lifting his onions in a plot that was up to his waist in weeds and his onions were brilliant!

His theory was that onions do not want any nitrogen feeding once they start swelling so he allows the weeds to grow to take up any nitrogen content of the soil.

I tried it but I didn't have the success he had, probably that was because of things he had done before the TV programme was made.

What I do is a variation on that and that is I am very careful with my nitrogen feeding and as the onions start swelling I give the bed a good soaking, particularly if we have not had much rain, in the hope that this causes  the surplus nitrogen to  leech out, plus it gives  the onions a good start in the swelling process.

So the moral is: Weeds are not too bad, they are just another plant in the wrong place so I guess we should work with them and around them as this old fella did!

[ACE]

Years ago I was given a plot on a site that was grown in and also  covered in old carpet. I took my digger in and cleared it in an hour. Burned it all up on some waste ground and turned the plot over. A committee man came in waving his arms for me to stop, then  asked me if I could 'open' up an area for about 4 more plots that was really unusable and past manual clearing. Done it all in an afternoon and got my plot rent free for the first year. I cannot see the problem. Always worked by hand the rest of the time I had the plot, until the council moved us. It was always temporary until the council could find us a permanent site. Sadly I had to give that one up, when I was working away from home. My present plots were all cleared by hand, but if I had still had my digger I would have taken the easy option.

[Obelixx]

Our plot is former donkey pasture and before that cow pasture.  It isn't quite level and has a concrete slab in an odd space and maybe other stuff too that we can't see because of the weeds and grass.   I have an arthritic back as well as slipped discs s, to make life easier as we age, our plot will be raised beds with defined paths for the rotational crops plus permanent beds round the edges for fruit trees and shrubs.   Our season will start earlier than the UK and I want to get it going this year.

[ancellsfarmer]

Our plot is former donkey pasture and before that cow pasture.  It isn't quite level and has a concrete slab in an odd space and maybe other stuff too that we can't see because of the weeds and grass.   I have an arthritic back as well as slipped discs s, to make life easier as we age, our plot will be raised beds with defined paths for the rotational crops plus permanent beds round the edges for fruit trees and shrubs.   Our season will start earlier than the UK and I want to get it going this year.

Please see :

http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk
There must be plenty of cardboard boxes in Vendee

[Digeroo]

The plot next to me used to have a family who came two or three evenings a week and hoed the whole plot.  Apart from me no one saw them and people thought there was some amazing reason why they had almost no weeds.