Author Topic: Carpet aaaaaaaaargh!  (Read 3078 times)

squeezyjohn

  • Hectare
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,022
  • Oxfordshire - Sandy loam on top of clay
Carpet aaaaaaaaargh!
« on: May 21, 2017, 20:51:07 »
I am in the process of getting on top of a second half-plot this season.  It was fairly overgrown but has a few nice raised beds in the middle and soft fruits around the edge, but there's a load of space that wasn't being used.  Now the raised beds are in order and planted up I've begun trying to extend the growing area and to my dismay find that under the grass and weeds there is a thin layer of soil and then just tons and tons of old carpets.

In some places there are 6 carpets on top of each other!  In others brittle sections of lino which snaps as soon as you try to move it.  They are almost impossible to lift with all the roots binding them together, some are semi-decomposed and fall to pieces while others are completely intact and huge.

It's going to make the job of turning the rest of this allotment in to something useable much more back-breaking and time-consuming ... including several long trips to the dump.  Very disappointing.

Now I know carpet can be useful to smother weeds, I've done it myself.  But you have to remove it and place it back every year otherwise weeds and debris collect on top and turn in to a layer of soil.  If you leave it there for 5 years ... it will be someone elses very difficult job that you have created through your negligence.  DON'T LEAVE CARPET THERE!  :BangHead:

Allotments are such brilliant things, and we only rent them for the time we have them ... we should improve them, not make them worse for future tenants.  I wish everyone would see them this way.


Duke Ellington

  • Hectare
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,452
Re: Carpet aaaaaaaaargh!
« Reply #1 on: May 21, 2017, 21:36:22 »
I feel your pain, we had the same when we took over our plot. Seven years later we still dig up the odd piece of carpet underlay😡😡😡. The carpet underlay became matted with weeds and we had to remove it like you would remove turf. As you know underlay is interwoven with a fine string too 😡😡😡😡😡It basically broke up into 1 inch pieces 😡😡😡😡 In one day we made twelve trips to the dump! Aaah now you've started me off again bringing back such a horrible memory of early days on our plot😡😡😡😡
I think use of carpet/underlay on plots should be banned.

duke
dont be fooled by the name I am a Lady!! :-*

Tee Gee

  • Hectare
  • *****
  • Posts: 6,926
  • Huddersfield - Light humus rich soil
    • The Gardener's Almanac
Re: Carpet aaaaaaaaargh!
« Reply #2 on: May 21, 2017, 22:14:25 »
Does your allotment belong to the local council?

Because if it is then they have rented a plot that is not fit for purpose.

We had an an occasion of a tenant being rented  a plot that was unfit for purpose and the tenant complained and the council sent men and machinery along to clean it up.

Covering plots with carpets are banned on our site could the same rule apply on your site?

If so you could go tongue in cheek  to your landlord and explain that it their responsibility for allowing the previous tenant to do so, so you think they should remove it.

I think it is worth a try


squeezyjohn

  • Hectare
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,022
  • Oxfordshire - Sandy loam on top of clay
Re: Carpet aaaaaaaaargh!
« Reply #3 on: May 21, 2017, 22:42:23 »
They're not council allotments, they belong to St. John's College, Oxford.  It's impossible to get them to pay for a new lock on the gate, they are essentially absentee landlords.

It's a double edged sword, great site with amazing soil in the middle of nowhere, we're just left alone to get on with things.  In return for pretty cheap rents we get no facilities whatsoever, have no committee or any structures like that, just a bloke who gets a free allotment in return for collecting rents.  We fix up all the communal paths and gates ourselves and the work seems to get shared out pretty fairly.

So digging up the carpet it is!  All the other vacant sites are under ten foot of brambles!

ACE

  • Hectare
  • *****
  • Posts: 7,424
Re: Carpet aaaaaaaaargh!
« Reply #4 on: May 22, 2017, 06:35:01 »
Natural fibres can be dug in if they are broken up enough with decay or could even be burned off with a flame gun. Nylon and foam backed are the problem,  lighting a bonfire on top will give out dangerous fumes.

johhnyco15

  • Hectare
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,277
  • clacton-on-sea
Re: Carpet aaaaaaaaargh!
« Reply #5 on: May 22, 2017, 06:51:22 »
we have a ban on carpets as we do car tyres i know in some places there  are seemed as normal on an allotment however its not the fact of using them its the getting rid after the plot holder has left  so we decided a ban was  the only was around this hope this helps  :sunny: :sunny: :sunny:
johhnyc015  may the plot be with you

ancellsfarmer

  • Hectare
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,335
  • Plot is London clay, rich in Mesozoic fossils
Re: Carpet aaaaaaaaargh!
« Reply #6 on: May 22, 2017, 08:22:00 »
Despicable practice, not the use but the abandonment!
Proper carpet such as axminster/wilton will decompose eventually. Polypropylene backing is fairly inert but will take forever to break down. Nasty foam backed and underlay call for a working -party to exhume and dump
 One wonders if you cannot go " no-dig", dependant on whether you assess the layer to be
 a) porous,
b)contaminated.
If yes & no, suggest you bury in 4" of soil, pretty much any, then blank with cardboard as a weed barrier, and build up a layer of greenwaste compost and plant strait in. Deep rooting plants will find their way, salads and onions etc will do ok on the top layer. Mulch annually.
Good luck.Please report actions/progress.
Freelance cultivator qualified within the University of Life.

Vinlander

  • Hectare
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,750
  • North London - heavy but fertile clay
Re: Carpet aaaaaaaaargh!
« Reply #7 on: May 22, 2017, 13:24:50 »
A very sharp knife can be used to hack through layers of buried carpet - something like an old chef's knife with a thin blade that can be regularly sharpened is best - I use a Green River knife I've been using for 30 years - like a mini-cutlass.

25kg sections are easy to lift out, expose on a raised area, dry to 1/4 or 1/8 the weight, then dump.

Carpet can be used sensibly though. There are a couple of key lessons.

I used to use carpet quite a lot, and I quickly found that turning it every season to dislodge the weeds was a pain, but putting plastic under it meant it dried out after a few days in spring, killing the weeds & stopping re-invasion - making the whole thing more do-able.

Obviously you don't want to create a huge watershed - strips 4 feet wide across the slope are best.

I ran out of good wool carpet about 6-8 years ago and moved on to plastic or tarp (covered by woodchip sunscreen to make it last).

But my neighbours started using carpet on the paths soon after I'd stopped - they didn't put plastic under it so the grasses and perennial weeds love it, and the problem is now 10x worse :BangHead:.

They also used path carpets as a way to 'walk' the path sideways and annex more ground at the expense of my plot :BangHead: :BangHead:. One of them still does. It's quite insidious - so the trusty knife is still used to cut through the buried, weed-clogged layers that have sneakily crossed onto my plot.

Cheers.

With a microholding you always get too much or bugger-all. (I'm fed up calling it an allotment garden - it just encourages the tidy-police).

The simple/complex split is more & more important: Simple fertilisers Poor, complex ones Good. Simple (old) poisons predictable, others (new) the opposite.

Digeroo

  • Hectare
  • *****
  • Posts: 9,578
  • Cotswolds - Gravel - Alkaline
Re: Carpet aaaaaaaaargh!
« Reply #8 on: May 22, 2017, 15:15:39 »
Actually I think I would prefer the brambles!

A lot of people on our site have left leaving their allotments in a mess.  Broken glass, wood, metal, wire, carpet, holes.   Plastic crates, bedsteads, tin cans.  Garden furniture, childrens toys, dead wheelbarrows. 

We pay a deposit but £25 goes nowhere when there is a need for a major clean up job.  Actually I do not think many people get their deposits back. 

The farmer puts pigs on, but some sites are not left even suitable for the porkers.



Vinlander

  • Hectare
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,750
  • North London - heavy but fertile clay
Re: Carpet aaaaaaaaargh!
« Reply #9 on: May 23, 2017, 11:42:10 »
The "Dark Side" of skip diving is the re-use of wooden windows as frames and greenhouses - 90% of what your previous plotholders found had been ousted by UPVC or aluminium so 90% of those frames will have paint layers from the 30s, 40s, 50s, when paint contained lead. It continued flaking in its re-use, and the broken ones might even have been chucked into a corner to rot down and go deep into the soil.

On my new plot I had a few flakes of lead paint per spadeful absolutely everywhere, some places where there were 100 flakes per spadeful and frequent hotspots where buried wood had to be removed with forensic digging.

An absolute nightmare. Too painful for emojis...

Paradoxically, the places where the last guy had burnt old frames were better (for me - not for his neighbours at the time) - the ashes contained very little paint - just lead balls that had been refined from the lead oxide paint by the embers of the fire. Metallic lead is much less of a problem (as long as your soil is neutral or alkaline).

There were probably 60s paint layers over the lead which would have made an appalling stench when burnt, and probably released dioxins too.

I'm 100% in favour of bonfire bans - burning is completely unnecessary - except for making charcoal from clean wood in a proper retort with proper filtration on the smoke.

Cheers.
With a microholding you always get too much or bugger-all. (I'm fed up calling it an allotment garden - it just encourages the tidy-police).

The simple/complex split is more & more important: Simple fertilisers Poor, complex ones Good. Simple (old) poisons predictable, others (new) the opposite.

pepper

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 2
  • pepper
Re: Carpet aaaaaaaaargh!
« Reply #10 on: May 23, 2017, 15:13:52 »
Feel for you. When you get your plot whoever thinks to have a test dig before you sign the lease? Carpet is a bad idea, modern carpets have lots of chemicals in and although they may eventualy rot you don't know what will be left behind. Plain cardboard and horse manure in layers is a far better solution but that doen't help you! Get rid of it a chunk at a time and consider yourself lucky it wasn't something worse (found a concrete slab in my last but one garden).
Pepper

mugwumps

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 4
Re: Carpet aaaaaaaaargh!
« Reply #11 on: June 12, 2017, 14:05:22 »
I have had appalling experiences with carpet left for years on the allotment I took over and this makes me realise the sheer stupidity & ignorance of people who leave carpet to rot, poison and become virtually impossible to remove thus making an allotment un-usable. Using it should be banned and the people who use it and leave it should be banned too. They are idiots.
« Last Edit: June 12, 2017, 14:16:47 by mugwumps »

 

SimplePortal 2.3.5 © 2008-2012, SimplePortal