Kitchen Garden Forum

Ok i managed to get an allotment from my Local council after waiting 2 years.

It is on new reclaimed land that the council has made available for allotment use.
They added approx 4Te of Mulch to the 5 Plots which have been made and rotavated which was then left for approx 6-7months. Bind weed, crouch grass, nettles and Docks are on this site. I have trench dug approx 1/3 pulling out the weeds by the roots with the aid of the Children.

This took 3 days to do with approx 2-3 hours each day.

the final 2/3 are proving to be hardier than the first 1/3 and am looking at getting a brush cutter in to make it look easier and more manageable for the trench digging and weeding(psychology).
Now the question is do i Hire or buy a Brush Cutter?
Heavy Duty Petrol Strimmer is approx £50-60 to hire and could probably pick one up second hand for a similiar price.
After buying this would it be used after its initial use of clearing most of the overgrown area.
I would then dig this over and weed whilst getting some Onion/garlic sets into the cleared area once they arrive.
Potatoes would go in January/February time.
Feedback on this dilema would be most appreciated.

Hi Ian

Sorry no advice on your dilemma. Just a comment on one point:
Potatoes would go in January/February time.

Not where you live they won't
Think March/April.

Alan that would be about right actually i did chit them and put them into barrels last year mid March.

Thanks for the reminder otherwise the seed potatoes i have purchased and awaiting delivery would be for nowt.

Evening Ian, if you can buy one for about £50, i think this might be a good way of doing it. You shouldn't need it again on the allotment so maybe you could sell it on, hopefully for the same money as you purchased it for.

OB,
Thanks for the reply i have managed to get hold of a used STIHL FS106 for £40. My good wife shall be picking it up on Sunday for me.

Then i can hit the ground shredding and hopefully make an Impact, see if it is any good.

Thanks
Ian

Hello Ian
I am going to dare to suggest that you use a rotovator after strimming!!!
I know that there will be many howls and dire warnings from others but if you use it properly you will save of yourself a lot of time and energy. The secret is to loosen the soil with a fork so that the machine's tynes can get a grip (not just skid over the surface) and then run the machine on its very slowest possible setting which is tortoise on my MT. This is slower than a funeral march but the soil is turned over very carefully and the chopping of weeds is reduced to a minimum, probably not much more than you'd get by digging with a spade. The soil can then be easily forked over to remove weeds. I use a Chillington Canterbury Fork for this and find it much easier than the traditional fork.
You will need to wait until the soil is in a reasonable condition though.

John

USE OF A ROTOVATOR

As John says a rotovator can be a great help but equally can succeed in breaking up bind weed, couch grass etc. and help in spreading it. The art is in the timing. If you can wait for a long enough dry period then the roots of couch grass can dry out in the tilth but if you get rain they rejuvenate and each bit can grow into another plant. We used to get long dry periods in the past let's hope they reappear this spring and summer.

All the best

Barney

Thanks for the Advice and encouragement.

I will go with the slow methodical approach of trench digging and slave labour of my Children. My Uncle who has also been growing on allotments suggested to leave the digging until January, and to then clear the "dead" bracken/weeds away after covering with Plastic.

Would rather get at least half the plot cleared as it is not a very large plot.

Evening IanNW, the way i always tackle a job is, it's time to rest when the job is done. So i would carry on digging as long as the weather permits, the soil will benifit from a Winters weather once turned over.

if you stick the strimmer on ebay in the spring you should easily get your money back.

We have grass paths. Not only do we like the look of them but they provide homes for some beneficial insects like beetles and the other wildlife seems to like it too - so we use the strimmer quite a lot along with our mower. The strimmer has a edging attachment.

The grass paths divide the plot into manageable beds that can be dealt with in one go - it's satisfying to see one completed. It also means that we don't need to tread on the soil and can sit on the grass to do some hand weeding.

I'm like Glallotments on that - I have to use my strimmer to keep the paths trimmed. No chance of using a mower - I'd never get it on the back of my bike to get it there, and I get strange enough looks with the strimmer strapped on the back!

Oops - accidentally posted that before I was ready!!!

You can't tell from the photo, but I've got the allotment divided into 5 sections, each separated by a grass path.
When I first started, I had a lot of much smaller beds, but strimming around them all was too much like hard work. For me, the larger sections work perfectly.

I should point out, mine is the allotment on to the left, NOT the one that overgrown one on the right!
Just thought I'd better point that out before OH or Alan got in a cheeky response.

The Mouse wrote:Just thought I'd better point that out before OH or Alan got in a cheeky response.

The very thought! Eh OH?

Hi Mouse
Your plot looks really similar to ours.

Before all the plots were taken we used to have grass like on the right of your picture trailing over our plot so we ended up strimming half of the next plot too just to keep the weeds back!