Allotments 4 All

Hi Everyone.
I have been lurking here for a while and have been inspired enough to ask my partner if I can use his overgrown garden for growing some veg.

My own garden is only 18 x 15 and is full of tomato plants, cucumber in grow bags and lettuce... first year grower.

In two days I have only managed to dig over an area around 4 foot long by 1 foot wide and a depth of only a fork.

The ground is just so hard, lots of stones and some heavy clay.  At this rate it will be next year before I can even get one bed dug. I have to chip away at it little by little.

This garden is around 35 foot long and about 20 foot wide. It is very overgrown at the moment, It had a lawn at  some point which is now infested with some type of grass which is thick stemmed and very matted.

After the two days I have put in I feel a bit like I am never going to acheive anything. Can anyone offer any advice...
With thanks

you already did somethink, 4ft by 1ft. start to plant.or seed. better try to seive and use the stone for drainage, put some manure and plant some lettuce, or whanever you like.then, start to digg another plot.i founded easer to do bit by bit.4ft by 1ft.is a good bit. good luck

;D Hi Karen ;D Welcome ;) I'm a newbie to all this and have learned that by digging small areas then planting is far less daunting than going at it like a bull at a gate.

I made 10'x4' beds that I found easy to cope with.

I don't think that carrots like freshly manured soil :-\ someone will correct me if wrong. :-\ ;D

Make it a fun thing and not a chore and reaping the benefits makes it all worth while ;) ;D

Get some squash plants in now and cover around them with black plastic to keep the weeds down.

How about going upwards and instead of digging make raised beds?

Karen,

Congratulations on taking the plunge.

I am assuming from the difficulty you are having in cultivation that your ground is dry. Being clayey this means that it is only slightly easier to work than granite!

Unless the stones are very large, I wouldn't worry about them, the plants won't.

If it is dry, try giving it a really good soaking (only the bit you are going to dig immediately), leave it a day to soak in and then try again, little by little.

A fork's depth is perfectly ok and if you can incorporate some humus - the soil conditioner stuff you can buy for 3 bags for £10 from the garden centres or from your council recycling sites is ideal.

Your carrots may be a bit of a problem as they need soil right up to the roots, any air gaps will not be appreciated.

Again, if the ground is dry, covering it with plastic is not a good idea as this will stop any rain (some promised over the next week) getting onto the ground. But any curcubit planted in a hole filled with soil improver should do well (if kept well watered). They are big enough to deal with "chunky" soil.

Unless you have some crops that you are desparate to grow, how about sowing some quick green manure such as radish, mustard or fenugreek, within a couple of months this will supply lots of humus for next year's crops and you could plant some overwintering crops such as onions, garlic or broad beans.

Best of luck

Phil

Don't give up K@ren! Clay soil is a real pain at this time of year. Too dry (like now probably!) and it's like digging rock, as Phil says, too wet and it's like mud.

What I have done where I could not dig, is cover the ground with weed control fabric, chip away a hole, stuff your seedling in (Beans? Peas?) fill the rest of the hole with compost. Then you've just got to hope that the roots of the plant can push their way through the clay - with regular watering.

Otherwise, you could try waiting for a big lot of rainfall and then digging over.

I will add a couple of points too. Clay soil may be hard to dig, but once you have got some humus into it, at least it hangs on to any nutrients. Sandy soil is easier to dig but a lot of hard work keeping in 'good heart'. Also, if the garden has been ignored for a long time the soil will not have been exhausted by over production. Believe it or not the best way to help a soil become fertile is to leave it alone for a few years. Finally, if the garden has not been used for vegetable growing, you will have a couple (usually) of pest free years as it takes that long for them to find your garden!
Do it slowly, don't expect too much to begin with and STOP before it gets boring.

Manure would be good on your rock hard soil.  You can spread it on your soil and let the worms taking it down.  Growing spuds on your soil would loosen it up as well.  I grew spuds without digging.  I threw some sheets of cardboard onto the weeds I'd hacked down a bit, then put manure on that and then put spuds in.  You can put black sheet mulch over the whole thing with holes cut in to the let the spuds grow through.  They are looking good apart from some which were knocked down by frost on 4th and 5th June!  I planted some spuds into manure into a wash basket and some upended growbags.  I also filled builders bags with manure and planted them up wish squashes and courgettes.  I also have grown sweetcorn and climbing french beans on a pile of manure on the ground.  So I feel I've achieved a fair bit without having to dig.  I've got a couple of raised beds with manure in as well.   I'd get something growing straight away then you won't get depressed as you've got something to look forward to. 

Quote from: philcooper on July 05, 2005, 09:06:59
Karen,

Being clayey this means that it is only slightly easier to work than granite!

That is so true :P  Digging mine is like chipping away at breeze blocks at the  moment!

Karen, welcome to the forum.  I started on a very heavy soil this time last year and it was extremely hard work to dig.  Don't do too much in any one session, I found the repeated shock of trying to cut through the hard pan was really hard on my wrists! :'(

Dig what you can a little at a time and plant or cover it as you go along or by the time you come to plant in spring the grass will be back with a vengance and you'll have to dig it all again!

Good luck ;D

I have found that it is not worth trying to dig my soil unless we have had some rain - then it is lovely to dig and the bits where I  got the mushroom compost, homemade compost and manure dug in last year are fab even when the ground is dry so don't give up completely. 

I think the previous advice is good - either soak the ground before digging wait until after some rain (been constantly raining here now for 2 days....) or wait until the autumn and maybe concentrate on getting any weeds and topgrowth sorted before then (covering with plastic, cardboard carpet etc).

If it makes you feel better I have had my lottie for 18 months and still haven't finished digging it all over.. :-[

If it's that hard, abandon the spade and use a digging hoe instead. I got one in the market in Birmingham a couple of years ago, for many things I prefer it to a spade, even on light soil. On concrete it would really make a difference since you could get a good swing at it.

Hi K@ren and Welcome!  ;D

I've had my lottie about 5 weeks now (maybe longer - lose track of time!) and like you it is clay soil which has not been cultivated for over 27 years!  Covered in marestail, grass, dandelions etc etc.  We are creating raised beds (although they are not very raised at the moment - this will happen over time) which are 10ft x 4ft.  We limit digging to 30 mins ago - which is more than enough!  In one week we managed to clear and dig a bed, incorporate organic matter and plant it up with runner beas, french beans, sweetcorn and some chard.  It gaves us the encouragement to move onto the next bed, which we are half way through and which we are going to plant salad stuff in and some carrots.

The rest of the allotment we have covered in black plastic (as recommended by other people) and have grown courgettes, butternut squash and cucumber through it (cut a small cross in and plant through).  This lets us grow something on the plot but covers up most of the weeds and makes the plot feel more manageable.  I think if you look at the whole lot it is overwhelming, you just have to do a little at a time, little by little.  Also, you need to get something in the ground.  It raised our spirits no end and gave us that boost to press on.

Believe me, now when we go down and the plots starting to look a bit ordered (instead of a jungle), we've got crops growing and beds in place - its all sooo worth it.  And wait til the harvest!  By all accounts, thats the best bit!   ;D

Very unlucky. Robert is right though, a mattock or such like would be far easier.
I break spade handles, no trouble, jut lean on them and snap. If you can find them I have steel handles ones now, much harder to snap!
If the spade is a treasured heirloom, you could get anew handle fitted.
My grandads old spade has had 5 new handles and 3 new blades and it is as good as the day he bought it! ;D

If it was just the handle that broke on the spade you should be able to put a new one on it, the spade itself should be fine.  My dad gave me a spade and fork too, they were my grandad's before and being at least 40 years old have had countless new handles and are still going strong ;D

I too have soil like yours - clay like concrete and full of house-seeds. As I'm a bit of a raspberry, I can't use a spade or a fork so I use that much slagged off implement, the garden claw - both the full length and the hand one. They're brilliant on clay.

There's a range of digging hoes illustrated here. It doesn't look as though they sell them singly though. You could probably find something locally, but they're not always easy to find.

http://www.chillington.co.uk/northafrica.html