i've recently taken on an allotment plot which has been derelict for a lot of years, nobody can remember when they were last used, it was covered in nettles and raspberry canes i've cleared the top and have started digging but as i've progressed it's becoming more and more stony, i've been there today and dug about a 4ft by 8ft patch and have got a wheel barrow full of stones most are around fist size or slightly smaller.
is there a point at which you would say that the ground is not workable, i don't want to put a lot of hard work only to find it's no good for growing in, not all of the plot is like this but i would say it's looking like about half is, the other problem is what to do the large pile of stones that i'm accumulating :-\
I use them on my paths for drainage - but I don't worry too much about them elsewhere either. Raised beds might help, along with short varieties of root vegetables... personally, I don't believe there are many "unworkable" bits of land, you just need to be realistic about what improvements to make & what you can grow there... good luck!
Oh, and nettles are a good sign of fertile soil.
One of gardening's great mysteries! Our site has been allotments since 1921 and on the basis that most gardeners will rake out a stone or two in their time, you'd think they'd be gone by now. Not so!
If you take the biggest rocks out, don't worry about the rest. I barrow them round our site and fill up the muddy ruts in our roads which are just grass paths.
I'm gradually replacing the bark on the paths round our raised beds with the stones that mysteriously propagate below and come near the surface of the beds each year.
I've dug up two dustbins full of flints and stones of various sizes. my eventual plan is to use some of the random bits of chicken wire and mesh to make cubes, then fill these with the stones to make gabions, add a couple of planks of wood and make a bench or two ;D recycle recycle recycle!
the migration upwards of stones is the same phenomena as the big bits in muesli always being at the top of the bag/box!! ;)
my nearby plot holders seem to think that what i'm digging up is a old path that has been made out of stones, i would have just left them in but they are only a couple of feet from the next plot so it looks like i'll have to keep digging them out.
Quote from: staris on July 30, 2008, 22:45:23
my nearby plot holders seem to think that what i'm digging up is a old path that has been made out of stones,
I bet they do! They have been dumping their stones on that bit of spare land for years.
Four years ago we went to considerable effort to make a 2ft by 4ft seed bed. We dug and dug and sifted and sieved and got all the stones out. Yet every year since, when we come to sow, we get another half bucket of stones...they breed down there.
In the beginning, the earth was a small ball of soil. And in that soil was a stone. And the stone became two stones...
my last allotment was stony - someone told me it had been a railway sidings, so that would explain it - probably ballast!
I found them annoying but also useful for paths and stuff. Now I have a stone-free garden and want to make a little frog pond, I find I miss them.
Yes - I think they do breed, so learn to love them!?
If they are smooth round stones they are worth £5 a bag.
I wish I'd known that then!
I had lots of sea washed pebbles, and also rubble from bomb sites and loads of pottery shards - not valuable but interesting.
Don't talk to me about stones. :'( ;D ;D ;D
Well apart from a big bag of stones I`v had loads of broken glass, pottery, cups (broken), lino strips, metal grilles (rusted), and many,many bricks.
I also had to get 7 metal poles out, which went down through the topsoil and 3`or more into the subsoil!
But now the ground has/is being double dug, all is well. Coming up real nice! :)
Hard work though! :P
When I took over my plot it was all grass so I stuck my fork in and got boiiing. The site is like a quarry. Having said that the first year I grew some very nice cabbage and pumpins in it. Stones are porous and therefore hold water and are great for hot summers when they keep roots cool (hot summers aarh does anyone remember them). Next year I am intending to making African grow bags so am collecting the stones to put down the middle of the bag