4 – New Allotment – No Such Thing As Cheating
Its June and has been about a month since we first started clearing our new allotment and progress so far feels slow, but not today.
We got a lot done, think we spent about two hours at it this time.
I got the path cleared and level, will get a ground sheet down next time to walk on so if it rains or is wet then its not going to turn to mud. I found a tree surgeon online a few miles from where I live which gives away free wood chippings if you turn up with your own bag so thats what im planning to use for path material.
Ive not mentioned this yet but my plan is to make the allotment as low maintenance as possible, I have a bad back and im hoping gardening will help keep me moving without it being to big a job for me to keep up to. Wood chip paths dont need mowing (I dont have a mower) and using ground sheets around permanent plants will help keep the weeds off. The main growing areas I plan to turn over and weed at the beginning of the year and then only have to pick out anything as it start growing before it gets rooted.
We got given some artificial grass offcuts by a neighbour from when they got there garden done so thought id test how some of it looks. Does the job nicely for the strawberry patch, although I think I might move the strawberries after they have fruited and once I’ve cleared the allotment. I like the idea of a path running up the centre so the current layout will likely change.
Also there is a nice flat area in the middle which is a triangle shape due to how the hill curves, I might bark this area which will give the kids somewhere flat to play about and somewhere for us to sit (I have an old bench, again never got round to getting rid of it luckily (Who says procrastination doesn’t pay off).
Well we certainly filled the compost bin and have resorted to just piling the weeds up near the fence for now.
Looks to have been a path running along the fence line with stone steps and edging in places.
My lovely wife used some hedge cutters to chop all the weeds to just above ground level. But they will grow back I hear you say…
Weedol, my secret weapon on the war against weeds (Spoiler Alert, It works really well but you will have to read about that in the next blog).
The weeds are growing really fast and the bottom of the allotment is almost impassable, before we could see edging and grow boxes but its all getting buried under long grass, strawberries and bramble.
You can buy Weedol on Amazon UK, I couldn’t find it on the US site but found Roundup which I’ve used before. You can use the links below:
I sprayed the patch with the cut weeds and then to see how well it does with fully grown weeds I sprayed the next patch which we hadn’t got to yet to see what happens.