Help - Lottie new girls!!

[Jude1966]

Hello everyone

I am so excited my partner and i have just got an allotment! We havent seen it as yet, we shall be checking it out later tonite!
Apparently it is a very wet allotment because we have heavy clay soil in our area of Tongham, so we are going to put a layer of weedol down and then top soil - any tips on this??

Also there are apparently some unual plants on the plot - eucalyptus being one!!


We also want to know if there are any veggies we can start growing immeadiately to get us going?? We only eat organic food so we are hoping to be able to get organic seeds etc - again any tips would be great.

Its so exciting, and this is a great site, many thanks in advance for anyone reading and replying to my message!

[Jude1966]

[Jude1966]

Thank you so much - Im at work too but this is way more exciting!!
;D :-*

[bupster]

Is Weedol organic?

You can still get in some chinese cabbage, maybe peas, spring onions, and perhaps some rocket - mine gets scarfed by slugs so I'm growing it at home now. Also I read somewhere about autumn-sowed carrots and cauliflowers. And spinach.

[moonbells]

Hi ElaineJude

Organic's not easy but worth it (though when you just lost your third lot of pruple sprouting broccoli, it's tempting to use slug pellets!)

The best thing for wet soil is the same as for dry soil and for that means any other soil - organic matter ie manure or compost.
If it's wet *clay* soil then you might have a worse problem but again the solution is lots of organic matter. It's just a mare trying to dig in it...

Weedol is most definitely *not* organic. I did just this before starting my own lottie, as I wasn't intending to be organic.  It wasn't until I saw how much you need to spray to get perfect cabbages that I decided against using any more chemicals! If you have weeds where you want to grow, then the best bet is to cover up the area with weed suppressing fabric or old woollen hessian-backed carpet (see your local carpet shop - any other type may be full of chemicals) and then leave it as long as you can.  The HDRA is a good place to start:
http://www.hdra.org.uk/organicgardening/gh_allt.htm
is a good page to read!

If you can clear a bed quickly and get some organic matter into it, then overwintering onions and garlic are a very good place to start.  Then you can do the rest at leisure (sort-of!). If you are on wet clay, then making raised beds and getting a delivery of topsoil is a good move, as long as it's got both organic matter and loam in it. 

Anyway, welcome to A4A and hope you find the link useful.

moonbells

[Jude1966]

Thanks moonbells, thats lots of help and musco appeciatted! :D :o

[kentishchloe]

Hi jude,
by weedol do you mean the chemical weedkiller called weedol or weed surpressant fabric (mypex, landscape fabric, many other names..)? the latter would, of course, be in keeping with organic principles.
I too have just got my plot and am putting in oriental leaves, garlic, japanese onions, broad beans, peas and Autumn King carrots over the next few weeks - many of which were suggestions from the clever peeps here :)

[hemajo]

I can vouch for the improvement of clay soil using compost.  I also added grit and I believe you can add sand too.  This was in my ornamental garden, and also, whenever I planted something, I'd dig a Two and sixpence hole, for a sixpenny plant (quote from some famous gardener I believe) and really improve the soil in that area. (but this can create problems of water collecting in these areas if the surrounding soil isn't also improved).   Eight years on and the soil is still clay - but much improved clay!!It still gets rock hard when dry in the summer.  But things grow well - nettles like it, and ground elder.
For my veg area (in the garden), we built raised beds and turned over the turf, bit of a dig (not me, the hubby!) and then heaped in tons of home-made compost and a bit of decent soil from elsewhere in the garden.  First year for the veg, but so far so good.

[Moggle]

Would agree with the others on the organic matter. Try to get some leafmould started for use in a year or so if you can too.

If your wet clay soil is like mine, and only wet in the winter (and like mud-bricks in the summer!), it might be worth digging over roughly now before it gets too wet, and letting the frosts and rains of winter do their stuff. My first bed last year (oct) was more mud than soil, but I managed to dig it over, and by March/april it had broken down quite nicely!

Another thing to try is to cover with cardboard for weed suppression, then with manure/compost and let the wormies work the lot in.

Good luck and welcome to A4A  :D

[Carrie]

One thing I would recommend if you are gardening on clay is stainless steel - after back breaking hours digging my clay with an ordinary fork I got a stainless steel fork and spade for my birthday - digging is now a blissful activity - the mud just does not stick so you do not build up a ton of weighty clay attached to the fork and if anything does stick you just run your hand down the tines and it slides off - I could go on for hours about the joys of stainless steel. It is normally much more expensive than the ordinary steel forks but mine came off a website called www.justoffbase-tools.co.uk where they are selling drapers tools at about half price. Happy digging

[spacehopper]

Just wanted to welcome you to the site.  :)
You could aim to clear one bed for November, the plant broad bean, onion and garlic?

[joji]

Hi me and my hubby have just taken on an allotment. ( we call it the footy field because it is sooooo big ). We can't even grow anything on it yet as it is so over grown. Good luck and happy lottying :)

[Jude1966]

 ;D ;D ;D

Thanks so much for all your replies, We have been to look at the allotment this evening and its doesnt seem too bad! Just weeds and grass to thigh hieght!!
I shall add all of your tips to my allotment book - Everyone is lovely on this site!
Thanks x

[wardy]

Once that thigh high grass is cut down with a brushcutter or scythe you'll realise just how big the plot is  :o  I mowed mine when we'd cut it down and we've kept it mowed since then to give us a leisure area.  Folks thought we were mad but our plot is huge so we have plenty of room.  The mowed area is looking good now the worst divots having been filled in.  It's nice to have when visitors come round, or folks bring their kids, it's somewhere safe for them to play and run about.  The lotty chap who kept chivvying me to get it dug admits he was wrong and what a lovely space we've created (result!)  He brought his wife to see what we'd done and they bought fish and chips and lagers and we sat round our home made table and had a lovely afternoon in our "garden".  This piece is too big really unless we want to start doing weddings but we can dig some of it up if we ever need to.  It would be great for lotty garden parties or socials as there's loads of room to put up gazebos etc.  Weddings - not a bad idea!  ;D