(Almost) spring on the allotment

I'd be enjoying this run of warm, sunny weather much more if it was, say, early May than February, but it's certainly been nice to get down to the allotment more than usual at this time of year. While it's a bit unsettling to get sunburned in the north of England in what is technically still winter, we've at least managed to get a head start on our spring jobs.

We've had quite a hectic social calendar over the last few weekends but have spent a few hours each week at the plot whenever possible. Last weekend, our progress included:

• Digging over and covering four beds
• Cutting back several smaller fruit trees
• Digging up a very old redcurrant bush
• Extending our woodchip and paving stone path
• Marking out new beds

But perhaps the thing I'm most excited about is the fact that we finally tackled The Mound. When we took on our plot, the ground was incredibly uneven. We've made good progress at levelling it out over the past year, but a huge mound near the entrance remained untouched. Well, we finally decided to tackle The Mound last weekend. It's hard to see in photos how big it was, but I estimate it at around 4 feet high, 5 feet wide and 12 feet long. The Mound was covered in about 6 layers of plastic and weed membrane, some of which had started to disintegrate. It probably took longer to remove these layers than to do anything else as there were so many plants and roots growing through the various layers, some many feet long.

Before we started tackling The Mound...

...and after!

Once we had removed the bulk of the coverings, we started digging. What we found was a mixture of soil, bricks, rubbish, large shards of glass and lots and lots of stones. It took several hours to get there, but the area is almost levelled out now, which we are delighted about! Now just the several visits to the tip to get rid of all the rubbish and broken glass!

The bricks we found will be put into use elsewhere on the plot, while the soil was used to fill in some of the other uneven patches of ground.

Love a productive Saturday

This weekend's plans include digging over more beds, trying to get hold of a ladder to prune the huge cherry tree, burning as much waste as possible and building some more raised beds. Let's hope it's a dry one! In other news, I planted some crocus bulbs before winter and had completely forgotten about them so was pleasantly surprised when they started appearing recently. So nice to have some colour at this time of year!

Crocuses adding some colour

Dismantling the broken greenhouse...after we find it

When we took on our allotment 22, there was a smashed greenhouse at one end, near the entrance. We made a brief attempt to clear it last year but we had so many other tasks to do that this one kind of fell by the wayside. We finally set aside a whole day to work on this area last week and managed to not only dismantle the metal frame and clear up lots of smashed glass, but also unearth a pretty sturdy looking brick base.

The marestail (OBVIOUSLY) had taken over the whole area, along with long grasses, brambles and bindweed. For want of a more refined technique, we simply hacked away at the weeds with a pair of garden shears. This at least allowed us to see bits of the greenhouse frame poking out from the greenery. We worked section by section, trying to take apart the frame as we came across new parts. The metal was pretty twisted in places and a lot of the bolts and screws were no longer usable so we ended up pulling most of it apart rather than using any tools.

There's a greenhouse under there somewhere...

It took most of the day to clear the greenhouse and part of the surrounding area but it's made a huge difference. Now when you're working on the plot, you can look up and see other plots and people walking by rather than just a 5-foot high wall of marestail!

Partway through

Unearthing parts of the greenhouse frame...

...and lots of old gloves, trays and rusty tools

We have a greenhouse base!

We've managed to get up most of the glass and that will be heading to the tip. As for the frame, we're going to keep hold of that until there's another scrap metal collection on the site. 

This weekend will involve clearing more of the land around allotment 22 and possibly even laying our first section of path! We're planning on using heavy duty weed membrane with woodchip on top. Handily, the council have just dumped a pile of woodchip inside the site entrance so we're hoping there's still lots there tomorrow. The problem with working full-time when half of the other plotholders are retired is that they're there every day in the week so we miss out on things like free woodchip as it's all gone by the time we get there!

Tackling the Brambles: Part Two

We've been pretty busy lately and haven't had as much time at the allotment as we would have liked. The arduous task of removing brambles had been left for the last couple of weeks as we've only really been down to collect redcurrants and check on the fruit bushes. Yesterday, however, we had a good 5 hours down there and made considerable progress with clearing the space where our shed's going to go.

After Googling how to get rid of brambles and reading up on other people's experiences, we just opted for the simple method of cutting them back manually then digging the roots out. We don't have strimmer so just cut them back with secateurs then dug into the ground with a fork to loosen the soil until we could start pulling the roots out. God, those bramble roots spread far! It was an eyeopener to follow them along under the surface and see just how far they went.

We've now cut back as far as we plan to so once we've removed the rest of the bramble roots, it will (hopefully) just be a case of keeping the brambles cut back to the area they currently occupy and taking care not to let them start taking over the bottom third of the plot again. If we were planning on removing ALL the brambles, I think we'd have to give in and borrow a strimmer from someone, and we'd likely need a lofty stepladder too as the brambles are so high. We're going to leave the brambles right at the end of the plot though as that patch doesn't get a great deal of sun and there are lots of frogs living down there. I like the idea of leaving one little part of the plot as natural as possible and I love blackberries so am happy to leave one section of brambles!

We had originally decided to leave the bulk of the brambles until after we'd collected all the blackberries in a couple of months' time, but yesterday, we just got on a roll and kept hacking and hacking! The section we removed was absolutely swamped in bindweed, and there was also a lot of dead wood mixed in with the brambles. We must have cleared about 15 square metres of brambles and bindweed. We need to go back this week and finish digging up the roots but we got some seriously heavy duty roots out yesterday - so satisfying! Equally satisfying is removing bindweed - metres and metres of it - in one movement! That stuff is relentless yet weirdly satisfying to pull off other plants and bushes. Of course, the omnipresent mare's tail was also shooting up alongside/inside/all around the brambles so we pulled up a lot more of that too, some of it 5 or 6 feet tall. I hate that stuff!

Before...

After...

Before the sunburn :-(

I also got a bit sunburnt, which I'm really annoyed about as I'm usually so careful. It was blazing sunshine later in the day but distinctly overcast for half the time we were there and it just slipped my mind to SPF up. I'm starting to understand why all the allotment holders have such a healthy glow all year round.

We're hoping to get down to the plot a few evenings this week - weather permitting - and get rid of the rest of the bramble roots, as well as level out the ground ready for the shed base.

All being well, we're aiming to get our shed delivered on Saturday and spend the weekend constructing it. So exciting to think we won't have to cart our tools back and forth every time any more! It will make it so much easier to pop down to the allotment; plus the car will no longer need valeting every 5 minutes. I think having the shed will make the plot finally really feel like "ours" and I can't wait to turn it into a little haven where we can sit and have a break from all the hard work and get out of the sun/rain as needed.

Weed Suppressant

As our plot was so overgrown when we took it on, we decided to start by clearing the worst of the weeds and then laying down some kind of weed suppressant. We researched a few different options and spoke to other plotholders and friends who were experienced gardeners. While a lot of people seemed to favour old carpet in the past, this wasn't an option as the use of carpet is banned on our allotment. The reason for this is that chemicals can seep into the soil. We didn't have ready access to carpet anyway, so this wasn't too much os a disappointment! Cardboard was another option, and we still intend to lay down some very heavy cardboard in some parts of our plot, possibly the more heavily overgrown sections that we won't get to just yet.

We also considered black plastic sheeting. There was already some of this on our plot, albeit very ripped and cracked. While this is a popular option as it keeps light AND water off the ground, thereby killing weeds more quickly, we were put off by the fact that the ground would be very dry and hard to work. We always planned to uncover small sections of ground at a time, and map out and dig over our beds one by one.

As the vast majority of the central part of our plot was taken over by mare's tail, which we'd be breaking off at the ground, and various grasses, we opted for weed membrane, which we hoped would be able to cope with finishing off the grass while preventing the mare's tail from popping up again. We read lots of reviews online and checked out forums to find which one would suit our needs. We knew we'd be traipsing back and forth over it, and that it needed to be heavy duty. We also wanted something that would let water in but was thick enough to effectively block light.

We checked out a few fabrics in shops, but lots of them seemed pretty flimsy and let a lot of light through.

 Eventually, we decided on this Yuzet Heavy Duty Weed Control Fabric from Amazon. It gets great reviews, and seemed reasonably priced for a heavy duty weed membrane. It also came in 50m rolls, which was great as we knew we'd need a lot! While it's only really been a couple of months since we laid the first of our weed control fabric, we're really impressed so far. It's withstood all kinds of weather so far, and has remained firmly in place. There are absolutely no signs of wear and tear yet, except at the odd edge where we've snagged it while cutting, or have had to pull pegs out to move them.

Weed control fabric on Allotment 22

As you can see from the photo, it's got a bit of a sheen to it, and is a little more plasticky than lots of fabrics. I was concerned it might tear easily because of the texture, but this honestly hasn't been a problem. The guidelines down the length of the fabric will be helpful when we come to lay paths in future and the fabric is really easy to cut with regular scissors.

We started off holding it down with bricks, but this wasn't ideal as they're easy to trip over and kick out of position. We got these Yuzet 6" Weed Control Fabric Pegs, also from Amazon, and they've been great to use. We push them in as far as we can with our hands, then stand on them firmly to push them right into the ground. It's a lot easier when it's rained recently, that's for sure! The only problems we've had are when the pegs have hit stone or pebbles - all too common on our plot, sadly - and we have to pull them out to re-position them. When you do this, the hooks on the pegs can catch on the weed control fabric and fray it a little but it's not too much of an inconvenience.

All in all, we're impressed with this product so far and will certainly be buying it again when we run out of our current supplies.

Planning Our Shed

As previously mentioned, our plot has nothing in the way of structures. We keep chatting to other plotholders who were fortunate enough to have a shed, greenhouse or BOTH on their plots when they took them on, while all we've got is 200 square metres of mare's tail and a smashed up greenhouse. C'est la vie. Anyway, we are getting really sick of transporting our tools and supplies to and from the allotment every time we go so are desperate to get a shed. We've decided on an 8x6 shed with double doors and have a shortlist of a few we like the look of. 

While I know the appearance of the shed doesn't really matter, and I love the rustic, cobbled together sheds you see on so many plots, I've been looking at some of the ways people have dressed their sheds and I love the idea of having a little haven, and not just somewhere to store tools. I've been stalking Pinterest, putting together a board of sheds and would love to eventually end up with something like one of these. Might be a while off though as there are obviously more pressing jobs at the moment than painting and putting up bunting.

Now all that's left to do is clear a space for the shed, level off the ground, get some weed control fabric and a base down, and order the actual shed. We've decided we want it near the far end of the plot, but not right at the end as we'll be keeping some of the very productive brambles that grow against the fence, and we've also decided our compost bins will go down there too in the shadiest, dampest part of the plot. Also, our leafmould bin, although I've only just heard about these (because, novice). The shed will be next to our apple and pear trees, and our soon-to-be-laid path will lead right to it. Here's Glyn measuring the spot where we're planning on placing the shed and looking way too happy for someone with this much work to do:

As you can see, there's a lot of mare's tail and bindweed to be removed (not too bad) but also a ton of brambles (grrrrr). Our aim is to get the shed area cleared this week and get some of our heavy duty weed membrane down as soon as we've levelled off the ground. The area just in front of that in the above picture is the only place we've done any serious digging so far, when we were removing brambles last week. God, those roots go deep! While we were digging up the brambles, we found several very heavy metal poles and lots of broken gardening tools, glass, bricks, stones and other bits of rock-hard debris that made an already arduous task far harder! We're really hoping the spot we've picked for the shed won't be as bad but I'm starting to wonder if the whole plot is going to be like that...

Wish us luck!

The Dreaded Mare's Tail

I'd never heard of mare's tail - or marestail, or horsetail, or Equisetum arvense to give it is proper name - before we took on our allotment. When we first viewed allotment 22, most of the weeds and grass had very recently been cut back by the council. Although the council have a policy to not get involved in the upkeep on allotments these days due to a lack of funds, apparently our plot was so bad that they made an exception.

When we viewed our plot, it was neglected and overgrown, but I didn't notice any mare's tail. When we returned two weeks later, it was full of those strange cone-like stems. We had no idea what they were, but a friendly fellow plot holder told us. After plenty of online research, we established mare's tail is almost impossible to remove, but that it is possible to weaken it dramatically.

This was taken before the mare's tail actually got too bad :-/

Most of the online resources I've used state that the fir tree-like mare's tail plants can reach "up to 2 feet in height". All I can say is, I wish ours was only 2 feet tall! In certain spots - usually in and around bushes and brambles - ours regularly reaches heights of 5-6 feet. Yep, it's as tall as we are. In fact, it's a lot taller than us in places but we haven't got round to tackling the more towering stems yet!

How to remove mare's tail

The one good thing about mare's tail is that it's easy to remove the shoots and fertile fir tree plants by snapping them off at the ground. We must have filled about 10 huge cement sacks (the kind you could fit a small car in) in just a couple of weeks by doing this, and there is still a lot more to go. I think we've been to the council tip more times in the last few weeks than we have in our entire lives. It's very satisfying to get rid of them, though, even though I know they'll return!

My mum and niece working on the mare's tail

Our hope is that once our plot is cultivated, we can try and stay on top of the mare's tail as much as possible, removing shoots as soon as they appear. Considering our plot has been neglected for so long, and due to the time of year we took it on, it's safe to say we shouldn't experience anything like the same level of problem with mare's tail again.

Although there is a fair bit of mare's tail on the rest of the site, it's nowhere near as bad as on our plot. Our neighbours have the odd stem sprouting up among their crops, but the majority of sites don't have any signs of it. 

Resources

If you're determined to eliminate mare's tail, horse tail, Equisetum arvense, call it what you will, this site has some great tips and case studies. We're sticking to the snapping-off-and-hopefully-weakening technique for now though!

Tackling the Brambles: Part One

...part one of several hundred, sadly. Probably. While we haven't attempted to measure how much of the far end of our allotment is taken over by towering brambles, it's possibly around 20 square metres, and they reach heights of well over 8 feet.

As well as the monstrous brambles at the end of our plot, there are several smaller bushes scatter along the perimeter fence down one side. It was these brambles we tackled at the weekend,  digging up the roots of two very well-established bushes. We'd cut the brambles back during the previous week so all we had to do this time was dig up the roots. I say "all we had to do", but this was far harder than anticipated!

We also found lots more glass, an assortment of very old, very rusty old garden tools, a manky soil sieve and a few broken plates, pieces of old metal signs, lots of bricks and a metal pole inserted so solidly and deeply into the ground that we initially thought it had been cemented in. It was exhausting, and we probably only managed to clear about 2 square meters of ground in the end. It's satisfying to know we've got rid of two very stubborn bramble bushes and a great deal of rubbish though!

We're planning on laying a path down both edges of our plot this summer, and hope to order our shed in the next couple of weeks, so this is what we're working towards at the moment. We've selected a spot for our shed and are planning to have a small seating area next to the shed and apple and pear tree.

We've currently got around 54 square metres currently covered with heavy duty weed membrane, We've been using Yuzet Heavy Duty Weed Control Fabric from Amazon and we're pretty impressed so far! It's managed to withstand lots of very strong winds (several other plotholders' greenhouses unfortunately didn't) and seems to be doing the job. We've held it down with a combination of bricks - as you can see in the picture - and pegs. I'd definitely recommend using pegs if you can as they look neater, you're less likely to trip over them, and they hold the weed membrane firmly in place. So, while the weed suppressant does its job and (hopefully) kills off the remaining weeds underneath, we're concentrating on our first path and our shed. And also collecting a few berries!