Selfsufficientish.com

Knowing that on the whole Ishers try hard to avoid weed killer and prefer to either hand pull or hoe weeds, I thought I would say what a good job we are all doing.

I took on my first half-allotment in Sept/Oct ish in 2007. The previous tenant was like us, removing weeds organically and refusing to use chemicals. He dug it over every year and applied manure. So when I took over it, the ground was in pretty good condition - still a bit clayey in places, but mostly good.

Then, in Oct 2008 the tenant who had been on the other half of the plot decided to move on and the council offered it to me (so now I have a full-sized plot). That tenant was not a hard worker, and prefered to spend his days down the local. In the year that we shared the plot, I saw him 3 times. His idea of keeping an allotment was to pour weed-killer on once a year, then attack the whole plot with a rotavator in the spring. After that he turned up only to plant things and harvest things and didn't touch the weeds which far outgrew the few vegetables he managed to grow.

Well, I cut down the huge growth and raked it all before finally starting to dig it over last week. The soil is horrendous! Less than half a spit deep it's thick, heavy clay all tangled up with couch grass roots. Digging it is such back-breaking work I'm only managing a couple of feet each time I go. I don't think it's been dug at all in years!

The difference between the two halves of the same plot is so huge that it can only be down to the way in which it has been cared for. So for all you Ishers who are busy with your spades right now, believe me when I say

YOU'RE DOING A GREAT JOB!

Rosendula,

T'is you that needs the congrats, resisting the urge to reach for the poisons;

Well done

Not sure I would have resisted, under the circumstances

MW

Yes, Rosendula, amazing job!

urgh, couch grass, even i am tempted by the toxic chemicals for that, but i keep on digging ...

yes, you are doing a truly amazing job, well done

take a photo now so you can look back on it once all the work is done and both halves of your plot are healthy and productive, it will remind you how worth it all that back-breaking work is.

I don't find couch grass as bad as ground elder or creeping buttercup.... which are both just annoying. Couch grass I just pull up by the roots every time I find it, it never gets too out of control... and it doesn't like being mowed so on the lawn I ensure I go over it repetitively with the push mower.

Well done all of us who never use chemicals - I think it is obvious that never using is much easier than stopping using.

Good luck with that patch Rosey... hard work, but you'll get there.

Hard work, but once its done... All you need now is a couple of tonnes of good, well rotted horse poo

Good luck!

The hard work is not only rewarding,but exercise too! Our soil is a fairly life-less chalky loam, which requires a lot of preparation & feeding. Our neighbours see our veg growing, & say "how do you achieve that? when all my crops are crap!" When i tell them that there is a little work involved, they say "oh,sod all that!" Is it me................?

To echo all that's gone before - well done.

We're thinking of building another house with all the rubble we've pulled out of our garden - despite being over 50 years old, I think it's always been just grass(it really couldn't be called a lawn!) over about 2' of solid rubble.

We've only dug out 6 x 1 sq.m. raised beds thus far ( in the polytunnel we only dug out big plant pot size holes for the tomatoes etc) and we've got a pile of stones and concrete chunks about 4'x2'x1' - heavens knows what we'll do with them!

Aww, thanks everyone. It can be so tempting to reach for the weedkillers - especially around mid-summer when for some reason you don't get out on the allotment for a couple of days and return to find a jungle! But I just wanted to let you know that all the digging and weeding and manuring really do work.

Green Aura, I know what you mean. I'm overhauling my front garden (at least I've started it. I don't know if I'll ever get it finished). Just under the surface I'm finding whole bricks, halves of patio stones, chunks of concrete - you name it! I'm wondering if I can make some sort of crazy paving area to park a bike trailer on.