Picture posting is enabled for all :)
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.
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)
"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!
southern softies
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.