Digging, Turning and Weeding

July has been a fantastic month for sunshine  and last Friday was another scorcher.  I roped mum in to show me the best way to start clearing the weeds.  The plot is so over run with weeds I really didn’t know where to start and my mum spends a lot of time in her garden so why not learn from an expert. 

What to do…

1. Decide on a section of your plot to start, probably near an edge.  Dig with a fork and literally turn the soil over to expose the soil and weeds underneath. 
2. Once the soil is turned you ‘whack’ the turned soil with the end of your fork to break it up and expose yet more weeds and roots. 
3. Repeat until you have dug and turned a line of earth (we probably exposed a 10ft line of soil).   
4. Then using a hand fork and a kneeler, get down and start pulling out as much weed and root as you can.  You won’t get it all, this process of digging and turning will need to be repeated many times just to keep the weeds at bay. 

We spent a good 3 hours at the plot and managed to turn over what felt like quite a lot of soil (see below), doesn’t look like a lot though does it?  My back and knees said different.  Although digging, turning and weeding is quite a time-consuming I found it very satisfying.  Apologies to all the worms which I picked up then threw, as I though they were couch grass root.

Mum getting stuck in

  

 

I’ve been up at the plot again today for another 4 hours, and managed to clear up to the end of the gooseberry bush.

Day 1 – Clearing

My first few hours in the allotment and it’s clearing, clearing and more clearing!  Armed with a newly bought fork and some garden bin liners I make a start.  There’s so much to do, it’s a bit over whelming but I have to start.

I’m literally pulling anything up that looks like a weed.  This is going to be a long process and will take several visits.  Once I’ve dug most of the weeds up, the plan is to cut all the grass back and then borrow a rotavator to go turn the soil over.  This will turn up more weeds that I need to take out.

Because it’s the end of July, I won’t be able to grow much this year, maybe some onions and garlic (so another plot owner has told me) so it’s just a case of getting the soil right for next year.

On my first day I did 3 hours and filled 5 bin liners and 2 garden sacks full of weeds and I’ve not even touched a corner of my plot.  I think it’s starting to look better though…. I can see the ground at least!

 

I’ve been quite lucky in that my plot has a few bits of fruit left from the previous owner.  I have a gooseberry bush, some rhubarb, raspberries and another gooseberry like bush that no one seems to know the name of.  People keep telling me it’s a rare Scottish cross breed?!? Anyway before all the fruit starts to drop off, I pick a bag of each to take home and freeze.  Not bad for my first day