Started working on our New allotment today. Its a place of two halves(both fully overgrown). The poor chap died earlier in the summer, On half is well laid out and all beds done just full over grown wet and horrible. Some decent buildings including a good clean caravan,sheds and some fruit cages etc. So just wondering where to start with this half.
I shall post some photos up of my new and original allotment and am sure some people will think i am mad!
The second half is just really a blank canvas with a couple of small fruit trees dotted around.
I am wondering is it worth having the ground scraped by a jcb (the allotment site is getting a jcb in to clear a huge tree stump. We also have one that we need removing.
Would you loose to much good soil (but saying that the soil isnt that good) by scraping the top and removing the mass of growth?
As anyone else had this done?
We had member who did this when he took over his new plot.. ::) But it didn't solve his problem with weeds..actually the aftergrowth is worst then what the it originally was.
The whole plot is now sea of couch grass.... :-X
But it all depends what you are trying to achieve. Removing top soil has its own good points and bad points..it will remove bramble and other thougher stuff..but it can make weed situation worst by chopping the roots into millions of new pieces. And building up the new top soil is slow process. You could replace it with new soil..but with expence..and you don't know what you bring with it unless guaranteed 'screened soil'.
Removal also takes away lot of the 'little critters' that are part of 'your soil'..getting soil ecology right again will take for while...and having JCB on the plot will create major compaction...lot of work afterwards..
Personally for me it would be absolute no no situation....unless there would be some contaminated soil to get rid of.
Sorry, can't provide simple answer.. :-\
Goodlife I don't mind hearing that. Least I know to put it out of my head
We have been told that the society did that to our plot long before we got it but that meant our plot was about a foot lower than others nearby, on a clay bed this can cause flooding problems
We have also found that there is only a foot or so of good soil left before we get to sub soil/clay and I'm told this does not have many nurtreints in it
It has taken us nearly five years of cadging soil and buying manure and gradually chipping away at the sub soil to get our plot to any reasonable standard.
There are no short cuts to good digging and weeding. My advice, for what its worth, start with a small area and keep at it, it pays off in the end. x
Similarly.... not something I'd consider... :-X
spray with round up. and then get digging, if your growing organic then no weed killer, just dig it over by hand-and say no no to JCB and scraping
Think it is in our contract that you can't remove top soil.
You can't beat nature .Only attempt to control it and all I can say is start digging. ;D
Bit at a time and you will get there ;D
Dig ,dig and dig some more. ;D
Quote from: betula on November 07, 2011, 16:31:44
Think it is in our contract that you can't remove top soil.
I think it's law. It's certainly in our Terms & Conditions.
Quote from: pansy potter on November 07, 2011, 16:45:56
Dig ,dig and dig some more. ;D
Sounds good to me!
We've had a couple of guys do this and the plot they ended up with was a no-no - no soil, no drainage - but still plenty of weed and a surface a bit like the road outside!
Removing soil never pays. Black plastic and hard graft will fix it.
Thanks peeps! UK post up the new and old allotment pics soon. Even though it is going to be hard am looking forward to the challange.
Well am not so sure what to do now.
I think half the new allotment ive taken on i may just turn over to soft fruit.....
As the top half has about 5-6 inches of wood chippings on top and rubbish soil.
So may move some fruit trees. And then dig holes for the soft fruit fill them with manure and decent soil and plant!. So looks like will be keeping both old and new allotments!
I have just brought some bare root trees - I was interested in something I read that said not to put manure/very good soil in the planting hole as it would stop the tree from putting down lots of roots to find good soil. Interested in what people think - guess you could put manure as a mulch...
I was interested in something I read that said not to put manure/very good soil in the planting hole as it would stop the tree from putting down lots of roots to find good soil. Hmm...I've come across that statement manytimes too..and I'm not convinced that it is the actual reason for 'no manure in planting hole' rule.
I think often people think manure is 'manure' and mistakingly use fresh sort..well that would not do any good as fresh sort has potential for causing roots to 'burn' and/or delicate new roots from developing.
Also if manure is used straight in a hole..it will hold manytimes more water than surrounding soil..so effectively one would plant into potential 'bog'..and new tree roots would just rot off before having any chance of growing.
Third is..manure can be very rich in nutrients..generally good stuff..but not ideal type of 'nutrients' at the time of planting. Bare root trees are planted during dormant season when there is no leaf growth. During the dormant season newly planted tree will put on root growth..nutrients in manure are not in right balance/type for that sort of growth...instead those nutrients are benefit for leafy growth later on.
So if anybody need to make their ground better for bare root planting..spent compost, leafmould..anything with low nutrients but based on organic matter is ideal for that situation..providing it is well mixed into the soil and added bone meal that has the right nutrients to encourage root growth
Fouth thing is...if planting into heavier clay soil..hole in clay, filled with pourous organic matter would create pond..water from surrounding clay would drain into the hole..pond situation.
So..I think the 'original' statement is just generalized over the time to cover all those reasons. Used correctly manure is wonderful..with fruit trees best used as mulch.
Definitely with Goodlife on this one - you have to encourage the tree to want to make roots by giving it enough to live on but no more - spent compost is perfect.
Giving a new tree a dose of fertiliser is like giving a couch potato meals-on-wheels (or a credit card and a pizza delivery number).
On the same idea: if you are on clay then you need to improve a much larger area - no good making a perfect hole (or couch) that the plant can't or won't want to root its way out of - sharp reductions in soil quality act like a barrier.
Apparently square holes are a good way to stop the roots circulating - been proved by experiment - pity nobody has tried triangular holes (that I know of).
The same philosophy applies to water: good soakings occasionally are better than continuous water, and with a good mulch you can make them even more infrequent.
At least a square metre of black plastic is a good idea - in fact on clay it's best to mound the tree and put black plastic over the mound - the idea is that this way you can keep the moisture up with the mulch while controlling waterlogging with the mound.
Cheers.