Does anyone have an allotment?

[Sonolanona]

After years on a waiting list, I was told today that there is a plot for me, and I can go and view it on sunday. I am excited! I love growing veggies but have a small garden and have been restricted to trugs and buckets and grow bags for years.

I'm assuming it will be awilderness and forsee spending the next few weeks clearing a jungle unless I'm very lucky.

Any tips for a newbie on the best way to clear and prepare a plot?! I generally have 1-2 free days a week (and more in the school holidays)

Read up about no dig - you’ll probably have to dig perennial weeds out to start
with though.

for clearing, covering with cardboard really gets things started. And if you’ve cleared a patch of ground don’t leave it empty - start growing or cover it with cardboard or Mypex.

Rotavating the ground just chops up the roots of weeds and makes things a billion times worse as every bupit of root grows a fresh plant. Don’t do,it.

We used a cordless strimmer to get the worst of it and covered the sections that we could not work at that point with ground sheet's.

We then asked around to see if anyone had a rotivator and they recommended a guy that comes in and rotivates the whole lot for £50, we had a large plot and this suited us. Some alloments have people on site who will do it for a donation or they have one you can hire, our allotment had a FB group for.plot owners, so worth asking if yours has one.

Chop down anything long. Waxk a load of manure and cover with cardboard ans compost etc. I'd avoid rotavating it because ita chops weeds up amd they come back much worse.

Clear a small square now and plant onions and over winter broadbeans.
Don't try digging if the soil clumps on your boots...ground is too wet and you will only compact it. Use time to cut down anything, decide what you want where, put down black plastic to cover areas you are not working.
Hope it's not too bad, at this time of year on my allotment you would get plots where people have decided not to rent for the next year and some are in decent condition.
I bought this book at the start because it gave a clear idea of what happened when.

Check with the allotment group, they should have an arrangement with Kings seeds and you can put in an order once a year. If you are lucky you should still be able to order this year.Hopefully the list will include rolls of black plastic - order enough of those to cover the whole plot. Weight it with sods or bricks, or with pea netting and tent pegs. Then just leave it. Don't remove it until you are ready to dig up that patch. It takes 2 years but everything underneath will die and rot down. You'll get a flush of weed seeds when you expose it and dig it over, then another about 4-6 weeks later. If you can't do that the next best option is to dig it up, stack it and cover it with black plastic. Remove any perennial roots like dock and nettle. You can spread it back over the beds when its rotted down.

It's winter so if you can use from now until the spring growing season to kill the weeds and clear it, you will give yourself a head start before things start growing more in spring

Chop it down to the ground and cover with manure and cardboard.

Don't use carpets or weed membranes - they are bad for the soil and things just grow through and it gets all tangled up and impossible to remove

Cardboard rots down so can be left and you don't have to pick it back up

The cardboard stops light getting through to the weeds. Dampen it down once you have laid it to keep it in place and use metal U shaped tent pegs to hold it in place if you like

If you like you can remove a section of cardboard, completely clear the weeds from under it, then place the cardboard back down, whenever you visit and have time

Cardboard is more effective if the ground is already cleared but still works well over short vegetation

If anything pokes up above or through the cardboard pull it out

Come march you will be ready to start your first growing season properly without having to battle last year's weeds. I promise you will still spend about 80% of your allotment time weeding once growing season starts mind

Look up Emma's Allotment Diaries on YouTube. She's a funny amateur allotment-holder who really makes the best of it and happily shares her mistakes and cock-ups!

My daughter and her partner got an allotment three or four years ago. It was a new bit of land that had never been cultivated, but thanks to the no dig method, they transformed it into a beautiful productive space within a season. I'm no gardener, but that system is amazing. They were the first of their allotment association to adopt it, and their fellow members were massively impressed by the results