Topic: Where to put digging?

[timelady]

Yes another silly question! :D

Walking around the other plots at my allotment I've noticed that a lot of people have actually dug out the top layer of couch grass/soil - their beds are a good 6 inches at least below ground level. Now I've got a nice little 'raised bed' on the go from doing this but their plots are mysteriously void of piles of soil! Any ideas what they might be doing with it, or clever ideas of what I could do with mine? I'm happy to build up some areas and cover with black covering (got some from one of the allotment manager-type guys to use this year! So nice) so the grass can die.  Some areas I'm digging out anyway so I can put in bulbs this month and just wondered if I'm missing some tricks on what to do with my dug bits.

And thanks for the bramble branch advice in the other thread, mine is now nicely restacked in an exposed 'wall' structure. Blocks me from the road (hoping to build it even higher, there's plenty of bramble still!) and hopefully might be a nice little hotel for hedgehogs. So no bonfire, I like the wall. (there's a piccie on my blog)

Ta,
Tina.

P.S. I'd ask people on the plots but I hardly ever see anyone! It's spooky. Whole swathes of bramble woods disappear overnight. ;) Actually it's just that my time there is a bit odd, being self employed I spend a lot of weekend mornings there from around 9-11.

[manicscousers]

isn't their idea a waste of good growing soil ?  usual to stack up turves to rot down but all the goodness is in the top soil, isn't it ?, maybe I'm wrong but I like your idea better :)

[OliveOil]

Just a thought - other people on my plot have low soil levels after years of growing... am thinking soil erosion here!

[Mrs Ava]

What I found watching people is they cut away the couch and remove a lot of their topsoil with it.  I imagine as they don't want to compost couch, the either dump it somewhere out of site, or they take it away.  When I was confronted with my couch infested meadow, I took a great deal of time shaking and shaking each clod to remove as much soil as I could, then I built up the soil with lashings of compost, leaf mould and rotted manure - something I still do now, and my level is slightly proud of the paths.  Old Jack on the other hand doesn't dig, he rotovates -well he is nearly 80 - and he doesn't use manure, only chicken pellets, so yes, over time, his level is sinking.  Everytime you pull up a beetroot or pull up a dead/finished plant, you remove some of the earth - only a little, but over a few years I'm sure this shows.

Couch is a b*(ch and mine grows through black plastic, piercing it with knitting needle like growths.  You could pile it all up out of the way and cover it with black plastic and then forget about it for a couple of years - you could always top it with some fresh manure and plant a squash in it next spring - then use it, sieving it first just in case any of the root survive.

I hardly see anyone on our site either as I am a weekday morning kinda girl, but there has been an influx of newbies since dues were owed, and they are all retired folk and are there all the time!  Fantastic!! Company at last.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I compost all of mine. At one stage I had mountains of topsoil all over the place, but it's gradually getting spread about. I certainly wouldn't waste it, and I've never had couch survive composting. Even the tougher weeds that do occasionally get through are so weakened that they don't really establish themselves before they get dug out again and thown back in the oubliette.

[Columbus]

Hi Timelady, Hi all  :)

I have made earth banks with some of mine  - one to mark the edge of my plot so people don`t drive their cars over my leeks, that bank is also planted with tulip bulbs, two much bigger banks give privacy to my lawn space in front of my shed. These were used to plant squash into. I have a third heap that pushes up against three full dalek composters that in time will become top soil again. Turves on my first plot have rotted well and are now indistinguishable from any other soil.

col

[artichoke]

In my first allotment year I made three or four Weed Mountains of topsoil and weeds, and eventually dug them out to return the soil to the beds, and put all the nasty roots into binbags for a year, after which they were dead and dug back into the beds as nutricious compost. These days I put all nasties straight into binbags for a year.

On my second site, I see some people make Weed Mountains, and others make raised paths with the upturned turves, which simply grow back again. I don't know why no-one seems to use the binbag method. Admittedly a pile of binbags is a bit of an eyesore, but the problem goes away after a couple of years of digging and weeding.

[timelady]

Thanks for all the ideas! We're supposed to maintain the paths between plots and since the ones between me and my neighbours have completed disappeared over the years it's a great idea to use my digging to build up new paths. And big bags are great too! I was going to dig a hidden trench under my shed for my tools and then cover the hole with something but couldn't think what would work best and be unappealing to youths. A pile of bin bags would work great.

Tina.

[MattyJC]

the weeds and grass I dug out/acquired when I took on my plot were all piled into a pallet compost heap, where they still are 18 months on, I'm going to leave it for at least another 18 months and then have a look see about putting it back over the plot. Hopefully by that time all the couch etc will be dead...thats what I'm hoping for anyway.

Regards

Matt

[jennym]

All the couch grass dug out from my plot (plus heavy clods of thick sticky clay)was left in a huge mound, which took 2 or 3 years to break down into reasonably usable soil. Don't see any point at all in removing soil, over the years have added plenty of horse muck and leaf compost and compost from kitchen waste to raise the level or maintain it, and its improved the heavy clay no end. 

[manicscousers]

that's what we're trying to do, add everything we can get our hands on to build up and break down the sour, clay soil we inherited

[cornykev]

;)  Last year we dug the top layer of grass off the ground, as we are the end plot we piled the clods up in a heap against the fence and forgot about them. The other day I was strimming down some nettles for the compost when I noticed a nice pile of earth, it was just like topsoil so I started shovelling some back onto the plot.  So most of the clods had rotted down just taking out a few roots and a bit of grass grown on top, we have wooden borders around the plot so you can see how low the soil is, so hopefully I can get the levels up a bit higher. I am now doing the same with a path that grown too wide, stepping stones instead I think, less maintenance, and I can move the s. stones next year.


               May the corn be with you.

[southernsteve]

The bin bag idea sounds great. Pity I didn't know about this a couple of weeks ago before I dug tonnes of couch grass roots, and other nasties out of the plot and dumped them on the rubbish tip. Fortunately most of the earth just fell off them, so I've kept most of my top soil.

[flytrapman]

Hi
I put all my perrenial weeds into large plastic drums & cover with water after a few months I then  put on to the compost heap.
Phil

[Clairylou]

I dug out to layer of couch grass last year (my first year on allotment) i piled all the soil up at the bottom of the allotment (much to the older wiser allotmenteers dismay as they were quick to tell me it was the best soil i was digging out)  i then turned over remaining soil then after about six months went back to the pile and found most of the roots had dried out i then riddled it a barrow at a time and added it back to the cleared bit.  This has been working well and i am now almost through the whole pile of couch grass ridden soil. 

Claire
 :)

[manicscousers]

that's what we did, riddles are great aren't they  :)

[artichoke]

I didn't riddle mine, but I certainly got comments from older men about digging out the best soil, even though I explained that I would put it back eventually.

[cornykev]

::) Still throwing topsoil like earth back on to the plot from my year old stacked clods. :)


                 May the corn be with you.