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I took on the very derelict plot 19 in August 2002 because the weeds had been encroaching on to my more modestly sized Plot 17 for too long and I was getting fed up of them. I persuaded my long-suffering husband Larry to help me do the initial clearing. The site was definitely not for the fainthearted.
We could barely tell where the boundaries were as it was all so overgrown and decided to start by clearing up the mess of brambles, wild raspberries and stinging nettles. Larry used a brush cutter and billhook on it, while I had the easy job of raking up the debris. At one point, I thought I must have driven him completely crazy with all my demands as I saw him running out of the undergrowth, waving his arms madly. I then realised that very angry wasps, which had taken up residence in three nests and were not at all happy at being disturbed, were attacking him! I had been told by other plot-holders that my new site used to be a piggery and clearance of this first area revealed what was to become a very useful bit of hard standing.
The next task was to strim the very tall grass and to try and define the boundaries. Once that was done, I carefully applied some glyphosate to weaken the couch grass before we made a start on the digging in the autumn. I already had in mind that such a large plot had to be divided into smaller areas to make it more manageable for me, and, once I had decided on the outline, we marked out the whole plot with line and string. Each plot was cut out and dug over during autumn and winter, just in time for me to get the potatoes and onions in for spring.
Having dug out the eight squares to be used for vegetables and the four retangular borders that were to become cut flower areas, we embarked on the last area to be cleared next to the sheds and concrete. The whole site contained a huge amount of flints so it was decided to build a path through the middle of this area to connect the middle grass path to the concrete and chuck all the bits of flint onto this new path. Ron, a top-notch chrysanthemum grower, provided us with old scaffold planks to make the edging and we dug the rest of this area to work around the path.
It was early June by this time, so I grew sweet corn, sunflowers and squashes on this area, but I have already decided that it will become a permanent sweet pea and climbing bean area next year. Compost bins were erected from pallets given by the site manager at the old John Kay House building site.
It has been an interesting first year and hacking through all that undergrowth has meant that we have met and enjoyed the company of all the plot holders on the other side of the "jungle" who we had not even been able to see from Plot 17. |
We recommended to the Council that there should be no 