Ok, been to the plot a few times, in fact last week the whole family went for a day and got lots done. The better half weeded the alum patch, I dug another patch for the potatoes (did another yesterday, only 4 more to do!). The children fetched and carried and got rid of stones as requested, very hot day.
Spent most of the day at the allotment yesterday, my kind neighbour gave me some corrugated sheeting he had spare so I can now try and rabbit proof the front of the plot. Also got some more pallets from him. Gonna need these. Let me explain.
I have a plot that hasn't been touched for years, so after strimming the weeds down and covering as much of the surface for a few months I am down to sorting the soil patch by patch. I started chopping up the surface and trying to rake the weeds out (lots and lots of couch grass), but I always seemed to miss allot. So I decided to get serious and have been systematically de-turfing each patch as I do it, removing 10" x 10" by 6" deep turfs as I go. The good point to this is that it takes 90% of the weeds and roots with it, the bad side is it also removes alot of the fertile part of soil, as another 10" down and I hit subsoil. I am also producing a large turf mountain behind my compost heap which is creaping towards the shed!!!!. I have decided to use the said pallets to make a fenced of area right at the front of the plot and fill this with further turfs up to a height of about 3'. These i will then cover over the summer and next winter to hopefully rot down to provide good top soil next year, but I have a suspicion that I will have to remove the couch grass roots and burn them first.
Alot of seeds in the greenhouse and now coming through, including sweetcorn, red cabbage, more tomatoes, chilli's, cauliflower, broccoli and some mixed flowers for the bee's and bugs.
Right my cable ties arrived today so my task for this week is to dig the rest of my spud patches and put up my new netting around half of the veg patches.