Manchester Drive Allotment Society

So first a brief history.

I took over plots 44 and 45a in about November 2005. The annual rent is one full plot and one half plot. They are the two plots on the corner closest to the Shop. Most of 45a (the most southerly / bottom plot) was unused and grassed over, but there were 4 blueberry bushes and a large blackberry run. About 1/3 of plot 44 was grassed over, with one smaller bed covered in carpet and one large area which was tended. There were also two runner bean runs, and also a shed, compost, water tank, pond, plum tree, apple tree, an overly large pampas grass and another very large rather spiky plant at the front. 

I started out by digging over the worked bed on 44. I removed a number of fully / over ripened vegetables, and started digging it over. Whilst removing the potatoes, I noticed a number of long white roots. Not paying much attention at the time (thinking more about what to do with the rest of the plot), I assumed that they were roots from the potatoes, and dug them in. As I was digging more of the bed, the roots seemed to have travelled a long way across the bed, but I carried on digging. It was then recommended that I should rotovate the bed, and I duly made a donation and hired the big red rotovator from Peter. After a couple of hours, my bed looked really nice :-)

I planted beans, onions chalottes, carrots, lettuces, and a few more that I now can't remember. Things did not go well. I didn't have a rose for my watering can, and ended up washing most of the carrot seeds away :-(. I started the lettuces at home in the greenhouse. As soon as I planted them out they were attacked by slugs. A bottle of slug pellets later, and my plot was covered in dead slugs and many flies!! I planted too many, and whilst we liked having salads at home during the summer, we just couldn't eat them fast enough. I also planted them too late and missed half the year. Those that were left grew too big and went to seed. The remains went into the compost.

The beans were a great success. We had way too many, and even too many to give away. The freezer was full as well, and I vowed to sow half as many the next year! 

I had noticed a number of weeds popping up all over the place, and removed them all before they got too big. I was away on holiday for two weeks, and when we returned I found that the majority of the bed was covered with Bind Weed! After many attempts and many hours of trying to untangle my onions, I more or less gave up! It had grown up itself to the height of about 18-24 inches, and was more like a forest. The parts of the bed that did not have food growing on it was strimmed, and I ended up covered in sticky liquid from the severed bind weed. Of course, it grew back, but this gave me a fighting chance! I tried spraying the new shoots with glyphosphate weed killer, with only limited success. Once the onions had been removed later in the year the entire plot was given a couple of waterings of glyphosphate again, and I eventually managed to kill most of it off. 

As soon as the weather turned and the earth changed from concrete back into soil again, I returned to digging. This time each and every clump of earth was broken apart by hand. Every root no matter how small and of any plant I could find, was put into an old fertilizer bag. As the months moved on more and more was added, but thankfully the roots in the bag dried out and / or rotted down. It took about 5 months in total to finish that one bed of about 10x10 metres - just less than half a plot! I was very grateful for the evenings that friends and family donated to help the cause, but my back was more grateful for the rest when I had finished! There were three sacks of Bindweed root in the end, which were deposited at Leigh tip!