Almost ready for planting

We have been very busy at the allotment today.

First I went to our local ASDA to pick up a load of scrap cardboard - the store is 24 hour so they stock the shelves overnight and bin the waste cardboard about 7am, so I called late last night and spoke to the night manager who agreed to put some cardboard to one side for me.

I was there just about 6am to find about twenty pieces of 4' square card waiting for me, and they even helped to carry it to my car too.

At that time there wasn't much point going home so I went straight to the allotment and started to fill one of the raised beds we had made last weekend.

After weeding

I decided to use one of the no-dig methods on this bed, so I quickly raked and forked over the loose topsoil to remove as many of the couch grass roots that I could. 

I managed to get 3/4 of a bucket full from this small area

The bed covered with cardboard.

Once the base of the bed was more or less level I covered it with the cardboard I had got that morning.

This will hopefully keep the weeds in the underlying soil down by denying them any light, but won't stop any plants sending down roots from above.

The cardboard will eventually rot down and add to the compost from the manure, but this will take some time to happen so weeds will be stopped for quite some time I hope



Part Filled with Manure



On top of the cardboard I put about four or five inches of manure, fresh from the rapidly dwindling pile on the road.

If you look at some of the earlier postings you will see that I started piling the manure to the right on my plot, but after looking at the water distribution and drainage Ken has come to the conclusion that this pile needs to move to the left hand side of the plot instead, as the ground it is currently sat upon is probably amongst the best drained on the whole plot. 

Never mind - there is only about five or six tons there already.



Fully Manured



This layer was also raked to get it approximately level, and I also had to make allowances for the uneven surface of the soil below, because once the cardboard becomes wet it will mould itself to the lumps and bumps under it, so any voids would cause subsidence above.

The fully finished bed, ready for planting.

The manure layer should also protect from slugs coming up through the ground- they don't like it as it is too warm and acidic for them. 

It should also burn any weed shoots as they try to grow through it, but won't harm the hardier roots from my plantings.

The final stage was to top the bed with three 70L bags of compost.  ASDA currently have these on offer at £2 per bag - their previous price was 3 for £10.

This gave a top layer of about 3 inches for sowing and planting into. 

I have decided to give this first bed to Will who is going to try Square Foot Gardening as this will be his only bed on the whole plot.

The first bed was completed by 8.30 am due to the minimal digging required, so I set off to pick Ken up who was going to help for the rest of the day.

Ken had different ideas about how to complete the second bed and wanted to make it the traditional way - double digging and incorporating lots of manure as we went.

Our Allotment Secretary had lent me the head off a mattock the night before, so we used the haft from a pick axe and got to work digging the bed down a foot or so.

Bed emptied and levelled 1 foot down

With the right tool for the job this only took a couple of hours to do, with the soil from the bed piles onto wood which we had placed on either side.



We then added six inches of compost from my pile on the roadway, levelled it off and refilled it from the piles either side.



Digging Hoe



I received a new tool in the post yesterday, a digging hoe, which was absolutely the best tool to use to get the big chunks of earth chopped down into little pieces.

By 16.20 we were both totally drained of energy so we decided to call it a day with the bed not quite finished.



Nearly finished bed no. 2

There is probably only another 30 -45 minutes of work left to do to complete it, but it will have to wait for another day.

Once again, the decision to pack up when we did turned out to be a good call as the heavens opened within five minutes of us leaving the plot. 

We had been favoured with good weather all day, with only a hint of a shower around 10.30 and a bit of far-off thunder about 15.30, so we can't complain, especially as the forecast was for lots of heavy showers throughout the day.

Looking forwards to next week now as I can finally get some of the plant in the blow away in the ground.