got my self a large lottie plot!

[gayle]

Hi everyone, can you tell me the dos and donts when im down the allotment, ie when to have bon fire, and so on. ::)

[gayle]

[Icyberjunkie]

It will probably be down to your sites rules Gayle although if not its generally polite to ask any close by allotmenteers if they mind a fire.

Otherwise just ask questions if not sure - everyone will be very glad to offer advice and help I'm sure.

iain

[Zippy Seale]

Check with your local lottie bye laws and rule, some dont allow any, some onlt after a certain time.
I just burnt all the rotten old wood that made up a shed on our new plot,  took two days but done.  I had to stay with the fire till it was out, I did have a incinerator bin, which is easy to control and safer!
best advice is to keep the core hot, as this combusts the gases and not smoke everyone out, this being the biggest complaint.
burn only dry material, another tip.
I placed mine on 3 slabs leveled in the middle of a piece dug over, good fire break.
good luck  with your plot. :)
CG

[daveandtara]

hi gayle, i'm new too...had my lottie two weeks!
it's a good idea, even if you are allowed fires, to make sure the wind is not blowing towards the road or nearby houses. also, light it in plenty of time to burn out completely before you have to go home.
hope you enjoy your plot, this is a wonderful sight for information. you can ask absolutely anything and SOMEONE will know the answer!
have fun, Tara xx

[gayle]

thanks everone.
my plot is 9 poles, if anyone knows how big that is.
Its not been used for 5 years and is riddled with coouch! grass.
[been rotavated]
SO do i kill myself and go over it by hand.
Or wait till it grows a bit and put weed killer on the whole lot? :-\

[Svea]

Little and often, works for most things :D

welcome on board

[flowerlady]

Definitely out with the fork and start digging, but  take your time, there is all next year to go, and the next, and the next ...

But in the mean time - good old carpet and poly sheeting will discourage more weed seeds to flourish. :)

We had to cut our 4 ft  grass, then torch it, but a small evening fire when not too many folk are about, and the wind has died down gets rid of the rest!!

Lots of luck!

P.S. Still haven't planted anything yet, but patio has started sprouting with all sorts!  Off to dig some more .....

[Melbourne12]

thanks everone.
my plot is 9 poles, if anyone knows how big that is.
Its not been used for 5 years and is riddled with coouch! grass.
[been rotavated]
SO do i kill myself and go over it by hand.
Or wait till it grows a bit and put weed killer on the whole lot? :-\

FWIW, there are 160 poles to the acre (square poles, really).  In old money, there were 4 Poles to a Chain (I really had to memorise this when I was a little lad, which dates me more than somewhat  :o :o :o ), so a Pole is five and a half yards, or, say, 5 metres.  So your lottie is around 225 sq metres.  I guess that this is about right for a typical full size allotment.

You'll probably get loads of advice about the couch grass, but when we took on our allotment a little while ago, I killed the weeds with Weedol, then dug them up before rotavating.  Couch grass is quite hard work, because the roots form a sort of mat, which comes up in a great piece, full of soil.

If the couch grass has been rotavated in so that it's all chopped up and mixed in with the topsoil, it might be better simply to rake or fork over the top few centimetres and get rid of weeds that have been buried just below the surface, then plant whatever it is that you've got planned.

If you're not going to plant some areas until later or even next spring, it might be worth putting old carpet over the soil as a mulch to smother the weeds as they re-emerge.

[Zippy Seale]

we had the same problem with couch grass.  we cut it down to ground level, then rotavated it, and then covered 3/4 of the plot with black sillage plastic.  This allows us to work on one bed at a time,  and when the bed is pretty clear and ready, we will leave it for 3 weeks and weed it, as the weeds come up, then cover it as we work through our plot.
by October we should have it mostly done and should have less weeds coming through as we allowed them to germinate....etc.
getting a weed out of loose soil is alot easier...lol
As we are really not planting anything this year, we are just going to dig each bed, and seive the soil back in removing alot of root, other items.  Luckily for us, we got in contact with a stable yard, and he has a big pile of manure.  As not many order it this time of year, OH went up there and dug in to the middle of the pile which was well rotted and fill 25 bags of the best stuff.  this is being delivery this week.  So we will wait till the 3 weeks are up and the dig this in and a little watering and cover again and let nature got to work.
We wish you the best gayle and hope to hear that you have a bumper corp next year :)
Mrs CG

[gayle]

[/color
been down the allotment today, for three hours, got blisters on my blisters and felt quite ill when i came home.[very hot today]
Anyway the plot is very slowly starting to look half decent, all the elderly men speak to me and offer me advice, which is nice, is does stop you from working though.[take note elderly gents!]

The sound of veggies and fruit dropping into peoples buckets, is very encourging, as that wiil be me this time next year. I hope! ;D

[Sprout]

Like Melbourne, I too used Weedol on my couch grass. Whilst it quickly killed the grass, it didn't kill the roots with the result that it's sprouting up again. Will try Roundup next time.

[grubbyhobbit]

Roundup v good for killing the grass and making hard brown string of the roots - BUT you still have to get them out of the ground!!
The other problem I've found with my overgrown lottie is that once you kill off the couch, the other weeds seem to jump right on in there!!

[Robert_Brenchley]

Couch was my big problem for a couple of years, but once you get on top of it, it soon ceases to be a problem. It doesn't spread by seeding much, and the roots are shallow and don't break easily, so it's not too hard to get it out. Seeding weeds and ground elder, which has very brittle roots, are the problem now. I have a large area which I didn't dig last winter due to a head injury, and neglected to cover with black plastic. It's now covered in docks and badly needs digging. I can't face it in this weather though!

[wardy]

RB   Sorry to hear about your bad head  :)   The covering up does work and saves digging.  I've been planting up patches on my plot that were covered up last Novemberish and to save digging I've planted stuff using a bulb planter, such as cabbages and celeriac, broad beans and peas.  The burnt area where I've had fires is another idea for saving on digging as I've bunged plants straight into that.  Other patches I've chopped weeds down, laid cardboard then manure then spuds.  I hate digging  ;D
Pic shows frame on black placcy with no dig spuds doing nicely at the back.  Spuds in manure in bags as well

Wardy