Bob Hobden wrote:


"Ed" wrote...((Big Snip))
I was really looking forward to the present series of Gardeners World when
it was announced that they would be doing an allotment from scratch as I
am in a similar position and was hoping to learn from this.

But then, unaccountably, the BBC put Joe Swift in charge of this!!

First off, he hires a JCB to skim off all the surface grass and weeds.
Well, how practical is that for most allotmenteers? I can barely get a
wheelbarrow to my plot!!

Then he goes ahead and rotavates the whole place, chopping up and
multiplying all the perennial weed roots. Is that good practice?

Next he lays out triangular , and other odd-shaped, raised beds!! Where
is the sense in that? Regular oblong or square shaped beds must make for
easier sowing of crops in a straight line and for subsequent hoeing? And
how do you rotate crops if your beds are all of a different size?


Being an allotment gardener I wanted to see how some TV gardener coped
with a new allotment too but after the first program I lost all interest.
A JCB to throw away all the best soil instead of using weedkiller and
waiting, and then he imports more soil from God knows where containing God
knows what, then he makes stupid shaped expensive raised beds (it's an
allotment for growing food!!) that will be difficult to plant and
maintain. So realistic ... not in any way!
What are we going to learn from it? Not much except that they have too
much money. What worries me is what young inexperienced gardeners might
take from it, I can see wonderful allotment soil being scraped off and
dumped all over the country because of a few weeds.

Now reality.... New young gardener on our site, nice chap, knows little
but is so keen. His plot was 3ft high in nettles except where it was dock.
Ground not used for about 20 years except for parking a few lorries so
hard isn't the word, also contains bricks and some rubble. Had to put up
rabbit fencing too and he found that costly so no JCB and new soil for
him.


Well to an extent i've some sympathy for Joe, he's never been a veg
gardener, he's a garden designer, one oh so many from the last few years.
They know colours, wheels and basic design stuff, but usually rely on
labourers to do the actual work.

He is at least trying to learn, okay so skimming the allotment wasn't the
best move in the world but wait until I rely my woes in my new allotment.
I think there's potential there, if he keeps working at it, and starts
listening to the folks around him at the allotment.

Anyway, I moved house recently, April actually, went straight off and got
myself an allotment, great I thought. It was freshly ploughed which I
thought was a great help. Little did I know.

The allotment had been obviously unused for some years, is infested with
dock, thistle, plantains, bindweed the list is endless. You think of a
perennial, pernicious weed and I think it's there. Thus ploughing it was
quite probably the single worst thing that could be done.

So I figured i've little choice at this point, it's either months of hand
digging and extracting weed roots forever, or I wait 2 weeks for leaves to
show, then glyphosate the lot of them. 2 weeks later I do just that, about
5 or 6 days after that I peer over the fence to see how the poison is doing
and guess what, the local allotment secretary has only gone and ploughed
the whole thing again. Complete waste of £20 of poison and a few hours of
spraying, but worse than that, i've now got to wait another 2 weeks for the
leaves to re-appear and then start again. I can hardly plant anything now
until the end of June by which time most things won't take properly.

I mean it's hard enough work taking on an old allotment but this kind
of "trying to be helpful" stupidity really rankles me. He didn't ask me
first, he didn't even take note of the fact that most of the weeds we're
getting a little yellow or distorted, just went in and ploughed it all
again I couldn't believe it. Actually makes me wish i'd had it scraped.

Duncan