I have just picked up my key to my first allotment. I am very excited, however, I do not know where to start......It is very unloved and has been standing for some 2 years.
Can anyone give me some tips, or set me some goals that I might be able to achieve?
Thanks :o
Welcome!! Hope you are enjoying day dreaming about how it will be when all your plans work out!! I do lots of that, as a newbie myself!!
Look through the "Basics" part of this site and check out newbie threads..lots of advice and comments in that lot!!
Most of all...enjoy!!!!!!
Thanks alot, I am overwhelmed....I got a response!
I am going to go and have a look a bit later at the allotment. So, hopefully I will have more of an idea then.
This seems a great site and filled with helpful, normal folk. I can't wait to interact properly.
Thanks again. :)
Just start digging, but don't overdo it. Half an hour's digging is plenty to start off with. It's amazing how quickly the plot starts to look a whole lot better. Don't do as I did when I got my plot last year and dig for three or four hours at one time. I used to wake up the next morning and could hardly walk!!
Tools: Fork, spade, hand fork, rake. Gloves. Tough shirt/jacket.
Beg/borrow a strimmer if you can, get the weeds down to ground level. I had two thirds of my plot done for me; the other third was a very slow job with secateurs and a baby scythe. It's doable, and satisfying, but a strimmer's a damned sight quicker.
Black plastic. As much as you can afford, cover up ground as you clear it or the weeds'll grow as quick as you clear them. Dig a section at a time. I recommend beds, myself, though as a newbie as well I also recommend you don't listen to a word I say. Â :) Although beds mean that your paths are full of weeds until you have a chance to clear them, they seem more manageable, and it's very satisfying to clear, say, a six foot by four foot patch of perennial roots in an afternoon where it might take a weekend to do the width of the plot properly and you'll be sick of the sight of the place.
(on that subject I am rapidly becoming an expert)
Get something growing quick as you can. You've got all winter to dig, months and months of it - clear one bed properly and bung something in it while it's still warm enough.
Take photos, remind yourself what you've achieved.
Find acquaintances who grow/once grew veg, as it's all you'll want to talk about for a bit and your normal friends will not. :D
Thanks I will remember that! Sounds like good advice.
Someone has adviced me not to dig at all, just put weed sheeting down and create large raised beds. What do you think?
Thanks
Thanks for the great advice, I am feeling more positive already. I have to say, you made me laugh out loud! You have given me lots of good advice and I hope I will be able to bore you with my progress. You will listen won't you?
Thanks
I can bore for Britain, so fire away.
I'd love to do the sheeting/raised beds thing but I don't drive so am limited by what I can cart up to the plot in a rucksack. Maybe next year...
If you have the resources then apparently that's a very good organic way to go. If you're like me it's a good idea to remind yourself that it's a long-term project, dig, dig, hoik out perennials, dig, curse, fill shoes full of mud, dig.
;D Although we virtually live on top of our plot, we need a Sherpa Tenzing act to get there so me and 11 year old son have to take the constant dig approach!!
:P solid clay too!!!!
All the best
Helen
Hi Ms B, welcome! I agree withbupster's beds idea - i've so far just got one bed rotovated but i'm going to stick garlic, japanese onions and broad beans in it very shortly. you'll get tons of advice from the clever peeps on here - enjoy but don't feel overwhelmed, everyone very friendly :)
Dig part of the plot, and either cover the rest with black plastic or strim it; if you keep it mown the deep-rooted weeds will die, and the turf can be dug in. If you take that approach, don't make the mistake I did and get a cordless strimmer; if you don't have mains power on the site, get a petrol one.
I took on the usual weed infested plot in January and found as long as I did not rush I could dig all day. Sure, I took my time and the young ones came and dug as much as me in 4 hrs. but I didn't see them for another 2 weeks. I just plodded on very slowly, bit by bit and enjoyed every minute of it.
I now have my second plot much bigger than my other one and have dug most of that. Also I have dug the footings and laid three layers of brick for my new shed (10'x6') and it is being delivered and put up tomorrow, and I know I won't sleep tonight.
Oh!! my age 68. So if I can do it anybody can. Enjoy!
Rosemary
Hi Mrs B and welcome
My tip is a plastic garden chair so after a little digging you can sit and have a cuppa out of a flask and straghten up.
Pace yourself and painkillers I found muscles I forgot I had haha but it does tone you up.
Dig and plant this keeps you going seeing things grow and you will fined other lottie holders giving you bits.
My main tools is my fork and trowel
Well there isnt really anything left to add after all these wonderful suggestions, so I will just wish you luck, and to remember why you are doing this in the first place, it is so easy to get a false perspective and lose the enjoyment sometimes.
Good luck !
Derekthefox :D
The best bit of advice nobody has given you or me for that matter is WARM UP BEFORE DIGGING. I am off work for 2 weeks and can't even go down to the lottie!
Saying that I had been working all day down the lottie when my back went. After digging slashing and general tidying up I bent over to tie a string and it went! Luckily at work we have our own physio dept and its free to employees. Roll on 3.45 for my appointment.
Oh Crash,
I do hope your better soon,
I do pace myself, do a bit of digging and sit down to straighten up other wise my back locks not nice and I dont have a physio.
I do 2 hours at a time on lottie and anyone starting do a little and often would be the best advice I could give.
You may think your fit untill you start digging then you find those mucles you never thought you had?
I go up to the plot after work, every other day when I can manage it. There's only an hour or so before it gets dark, so I can't do too much. I never feel like I'm achieving anything, but when I go up on Saturday I can really see the difference from the previous week. Long term project! Repeat after me ad nauseum! :)
This is a great thread, have just read through loads of advice I wish I'd asked for in May when I got my plot (only discovered A4a in August and what fab advice there is here). I was in a similar plight - being a weekend gardener, decided on beds, but after three weekends' hard digging there wasn't much progress to boast about ...  :'(
(http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/7117/plotmay0521lm.th.jpg) (http://img220.imageshack.us/my.php?image=plotmay0521lm.jpg)
so I went for no-dig beds (well, nearly no dig, my son did all the digging ;D, he took the topsoil off the paths and dumped it on the beds), sheets of black plastic/woven plastic, cardboard, newpaper and loads and loads of mulch, and just planted as much as I could through holes, mostly transplants into the beds. I agree with all and sundry, plan to spend ony one or two hours at a time on the plot :P, and if you manage any extra, it's a bonus!
This is what the plot looks like tonight ...
(http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/6113/plotsep0517wy.th.jpg) (http://img220.imageshack.us/my.php?image=plotsep0517wy.jpg)
I think the best decision was to break the work into manageable chunks, and for me that's beds every time.
Keep posting progress notes, and best of luck Ms Ginner! ;D