Day off today and rain forecast for the afternoon, so it was straight up to lottsville after dropping my daughter at preschool.
The aim was to start to tackle the creeping invasion of grass into the allotment. The plot is a full metre narrower at the ‘bottom’ end (brassicas this year) compared to the top (fruit), and – as well as a very wobbly path – that’s partly due to the grass insurgency.
Part of the trouble is that the path and growing area are on the same level, so it’s difficult to create a distinct ‘edge’. Perhaps next winter I’ll think of a way to raise up the paths…
Anyhoo, I spent a chilly hour or so working from the path (avoiding stepping on the claggy soil) with a hand fork and managed to get a few metres sorted. I dug a bit of a trench as a I went, to slow down a repeated invasion.
Not straight, but better
Another reason for cracking on with this is that our beloved community composting site in the village is closing at the end of the month, as council austerity bites the gardeners of South Gloucestershire. Boo hiss. So, I want to get as many large-scale weeding jobs done while I can ditch the results in the community heap.
Muddy boots and fingernails 
We do the same thing of digging a trench along the edge of our path. It does keep the grass in its place for a while. You just have to re-edge it once in a while.
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Do you find it difficult to keep the trench ‘hollow’? I imagined that it’ll be too hard to retain as soon as I dig.
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When you dig over, just try and mound the soil up into the middle of the bed to keep it clear. It does eventually collapse back down once you get planting and weeding etc, and the rain doesn’t help. But we sometimes go back along it with an edging tool or the spade in mid summer. It really does help, the deeper you can make the trench the better.
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Horrid grass.. Good luck and sorry to hear about the community composting area closing. That really is a bad move!
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I know, it seems like very short-term thinking. I have some sympathy though, when you have to make massive cuts there will be some unpopular decisions. At least we have roadside collections, though we have to pay for them.
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Really? That is bonkers when you think you are donating something the council can sell.
Mind you, I don’t really have space for my garden waste bin as a bin so am thinking of using it as tool storage and using more garden waste in hugel beds and taking the few perennial weeds to the top when I pass.
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Good point. I need to check out this hugel business!
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I can’t give any feedback on my beds yet, as they are only a few months old. The birds like them though – they are pulling out the straw to make their nests 🙂
I think they have a lot of potential though….
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