Once the plot was rotivated at least I could see the earth in order that I could mark it out. I had already decided that I was going to have a four year rotation so the plot was to be deived into four. However the first 10 foo tof the plot was rough blue clay and rocks, so I decide to cultivate that are in raised beds and put my compost bins in that area. With ten foot abandoned down by the road the remainer was deived in four with a path from front to back along the centre line. It lacks design imagination but I am interest in plants not pretty patterns and hard landscaping.
For reasons I have no idea of I elected to start in the top left corner. I guess you have to start somewhere. I though of Chairman Moa's rallying call, The longest journay starts with the first step [With apologise to Mao], optomistically as it turned out, set off down the centre line of the plot with a garden fork and a spade over my shoulder. Having set out my idea of double digging across from the edge to the centre line. Two spade fulls into a reddish clarty soil I hit a stone. No problem, bend down pick it up...now what do I do with it? I know I will throw it onto the path or rtaher wher ethe path will be. Anothe two spades fulls and I hit something substantial. A little excavating shows it to be a "stump" of one of the Docks (Rumex obtusifolious). After five minutes of wrestling with the stump and bending tines on my Fork the spade being hopelessly out gunned, I had to admit I was beat. This did not bode well. I retired from the field of battle to consider my next move.
The next day I returned with Pick Axe and a Mattock over my shoulder. It was soon clear the Mattock was not aggresive enough. Bring on the Pick Axe. Now the soil on the plot is not too heavy but a Pick axe looked like the sledge-hammer to crack a Walnut. Not so, It took about four or five blows to bury the pick head into the ground radially about the Dock stump in order to be able the level to blasted thing out of the ground. One down and three foot of the first plot dug. This was going to take some time! A change of plan was needed. After close inspection I noticed that one could tel where the Docks had been. So I embarked on frontal attack on the Dock with the Pick axe. For three weeks I set about levering out the dock one at a time. The pile of Dock at the end of the plot grew and grew. presently the quarter was clear and then began the double digging. Slowly but surely the weeds yielded the fork. Little by the little the black soil was revealed from the weedy waste land. The effrot was worth while. By the Spring of 2004 there was sufficient cleared space for the Allotmenteers classic first crop - Potatoes.
Folks say that Potatoes clear the ground for further plants. Well that is not quite true. The digging to plants the spuds, the regular earthing up and the harvest all require the earth to be stirred about which actually breaks the soil up. All the Spuds do is grow which gives a nice crop and the plant canopy suppress the weeds, well some weeds.
I got into a sort of rythem. Down to the Lottie, get my gear on, push the wheel barrow with the fork and pick axe to the the area to be tackled, turn the Radio on and begin. A fork full at a time, turn it over onto the soil in front of the trench. Bash the back of the fork onto the clod. Pick out the weeds which are lobbed into the Whellbarrow, stones onto the "path". Next fork full. When the dqys work on the section was done the newlt dug and cleaned soil was raked flat. There a sort of Zen like quality to this repetive chore. Slowly but surely the black earth appear from under its green overcoat. I tackled a small section in each quarter and planted up the available space with the appropriate plants. In this way I got a several crops from the first season. The soil had the extra bulk of the manure and the action of diging aerated the soil so it ended up six the eight inches higher than when a started. As the year progressed the soil settled down but never the the compacted state it was when we first met.
A brain wave washed over me one day. Why not cover the areas that had not yet come under the fork with Black Plastic. It will exclude the light and hopefully supress the weeds. Indeed that is exactly what it has done. I no roll back the plastic to reveal a portion of soil to the dug. As I am the very last part ofthe plot the revealed soil shows no perrenial weeds except for a shadow of their roots. In this area I am just manuring and turning soil over. Because the rain has been excluded as well as the light it is quite dry and easy to dig.
The jobs is just about finished in Spring 2006. As the digging went on certain crops required lots of manure. A friend of my daughter keeps ponies. Her father was only too happy to get rid of several tonnes of well rotten manure from his land and I was happy to have it. As the double digging progressed the manure was incorporated at a rate of a wheelbarrow full per twelve foot row. The Spuds that came out of that earth were fanastic. The soil is bulking up which is encouraging the worms and slugs. All manner of creeping, sliding and scuttling things are now living in the soil which is a good thing.
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