Hints and Tips - Getting a New Plot Started

• Your new plot is a weed and bramble infested jungle? Don’t worry, most new plots are! Trying to clear it all, in one super-human effort, can be pretty demoralising - better to clear a manageable “bit”, and get that working really well.

• Best time to start? Definitely autumn or early winter - give yourself plenty time to clear and prepare beds for the new growing season, and you'll have the time in spring to invest in sowing and tending your crops. If you start in spring, it's a bit harder to juggle the time you need to do both tasks well.

• Mark your plot out into beds - 4 foot wide by any suitable length; the idea is that you don't walk on your growing soil, but can easily reach everything in the bed from the path.

• Decision time! Do you want to grow organically?
  

• - THE organic gardening resource.

  • In which case, clearing is probably a digging job; lift as much of the weed cover as you can, and use it to start a compost heap; use the fork and your hands to remove as much of the weed root systems as you can.
  • Alternatives - a rotovator? But beware, it will chop every weed into hundreds of little pieces, each of which can become a new weed! Or try a light-proof covering, or mulch, of thick black plastic, old carpet (woollen with natural backing - NOT rubber backed artificial fibres), or thick layers of cardboard and/or newspaper). Or weedkiller?

• Again - take it easy; don't overdo it, or be over-ambitious! Better to clear a small bed really well, and have good crops from it; cover the unused part of your plot with the plastic or carpet, and come back to clearing it later in the season.

• Start your compost heap! Make it as simple or complicated as you wish, but do get one going - it's good for maintaining fertile and healthy soil. Look at the plots around you - plots with compost heaps are usually the ones with good deep beds bulging over the path edges; plots without compost heaps are often those where the soil has sunk below path level.
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