Allotments 4 All

Yeah, come on sprout, you know it makes sense ...  :P

I dig then I mulch & at the moment I am halfway through removing a 10'x6'x18" slab of concrete from my garden which will be replaced with a lasgne bed directly on the clay subsoil I am left with.

I, too, like digging and find it good exercise and it also appeals to my obsessive compulsive side (I have a vision of an allotment worthy of a Victorian kitchen garden status, but will I ever manage to achieve it...?!)

However, my back has good weeks and bad weeks and time is carefully managed so in order to keep some kind of control on the weed population (and actually try to grow stuff!) I have gone/am going over to mulch with the hope that I stay sane and able to remain upright!

I dig where necessary (ie where perennial nasties have a good hold), but nowhere else. Apart from that I just mulch like mad, and dig out individual weeds as they surface. It takes a while, but I'm getting more and more of the plot free from weeds, and I'm saving myself ever more work.

I'm of the same mind as Robert...mulch and let the worms do the rest ;D

Quote from: louise stella on January 23, 2007, 12:17:04
Hopefully the couch grass will give up before I do!

I had the same hopes in the fall. The couch thrives. In both sections of our plot... without light under a tarp for months or after being smothered in cardboard with mulch on top for months, and just about any other place it manages to live on our plot except where we dug it out by hand.

Quite evil stuff, couch.

But we haven't given up!

I don't dig with spades or forks unless I'm digging spuds up. Can't, not since I did my back in digging.

But what I do is go over the beds (raised, again helps the poor old back) each season with a hand fork, and weed everything out, forking over the top 4-5 inches as I go.

Looks like the nicely dug plots, hardly any effort, deep structure preserved.

Suits me!

moonbells

If you dig couch carefully, at least once a year, the quantity goes steadily down until you end up digging out individual roots. Keep it up and you win in the end; it's nothing like as bad as ground elder.

Thanks for your replies guys!

I think the jury is out on digging v mulching! 

All ground should be mulched to improve soil structure etc and to retain moisture - which is very important down here in the South East (Kent).

There are several reasons why I haven't dug the second half as well as the first!  One is the weather is now against me (I only got the plot in October) and another is the fact that my back is hurting.  I was in a car crash about 12 years ago and damaged my sacro iliac joint (base of spine/pelvis) and I don't want to aggravate it further and not be able to actually tend the plot this year!

I am a great believer in improving soil structure - if the soil is improved the worms will be more active and the structure will be improved - digging breaks down this structure and destroys worms.  On the other hand digging exposes pests to birds and the cold etc.   So in future years I will just turn the top few inches between crops to let the birds do their stuff.

I just got myself another part time job, working in the Chatham Dockyard as a guide and there is a small brewery there so I am going to go and ask if I can have some spent hops - they make a great mulch!  I also have a friend who has promised me at least two bags of horse muck every sunday!! 

But there is no right or wrong way - just preference!

Louise

I like Caroline's method, the ol dads going to dig it for me method.    ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Green with envy @ spent hops and poo! ;D

Quote from: louise stella on January 24, 2007, 14:39:44
I am a great believer in improving soil structure - if the soil is improved the worms will be more active and the structure will be improved - digging breaks down this structure and destroys worms. 

The jury might be back in 2009! ::)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/main.jhtml?xml=/gardening/2006/12/02/gdig02.xml

Oooo I reckon some of the old guys on my site should read that - I can hear them tutting as I put down my mulch!  Somehow not digging all the time makes you a lesser gardener in their eyes!

Louise

Hey Supersprout - do you grow "no-dig" spuds by any chance?  I know the theory but would like to hear how it works in practice!

Louise

Hi louise stella, yes. So far I've only ever grown 'no dig' spuds under black plastic to help clear the plots (I took them on in May 04 and Dec 05). Cleared the ground, covered in spent hops, put the potatoes in and covered with black plastic. I've never grown spuds in pots, as I don't want to be a slave to the watering can!

With 'clean' beds to plant into this year, I'll be covering no-dig spuds with organic mulch instead of black plastic, something like this:
http://www.organicgardening.org.uk/organicgardening/nd_spuds.php

Rocket, Swift, Amandine and Desiree gave reasonable crops over two years - Amandine did exceptionally well, :) It's *pure magic* to tweak away the plastic and furtle up generous clusters of tubers (especially when the diggers are watching - timing is everything! ;)) My impression is of slightly lower yields compared with the traditional method (which I've done for years on other plots). But you don't have to water, weed or earth up, so it's a small penalty. Be prepared for meeces to hunker down under the plastic over winter and take a few bites out of the biggest tubers >:( I didn't have problems with e.g. eelworm or slugs.

When the plants matured, they seemed 'leggy'. It might be the varieties? but I missed being able to mulch them up to cover the stems as they grew. That shouldn't be a problem with the mulching method this year.

One minor niggle. If you sow your spuds under black plastic, in theory you can cut growing holes when the shoots push through. I found that the shoots didn't always push hard enough to show where the spuds were - I had to hunt for stray shoots that were running along under the black plastic instead of poking out. And if you cut holes and plant through them, there's no guarantee that the spud shoots will come up where you planted the spuds! That shouldn't be a problem with no dig using mulch. Let's See What Happens.

we've done the no dig spuds as well, dig a hole with a bulb planter, put the spud in, cover with soil, as it grows, cover with anything, compost, soil, rotted grass clippings, then newspaper collars, with fresh grass clippings on top,
we got a good crop but that was 3 years ago, haven't tried it in these new beds ...yet  ;D

thanks for the spud tips!

So

I have weeded the beds, but the couch and all it's friends will no doubt return - so do you think I should plant the spuds under a membrane - or just mulch heavily as they grow?

Louise

Quote from: Baccy Man on January 24, 2007, 02:06:57
I dig then I mulch & at the moment I am halfway through removing a 10'x6'x18" slab of concrete from my garden which will be replaced with a lasgne bed directly on the clay subsoil I am left with.

I smashed the same thing up 2 weeks ago. Still got half the concrete to get to the tip. Hope I can this weekend. Missus is on my case as it from the greenhouse in our garden not the one in the lottie.....