Traditional allotment gardening – so simple. So cheap. So productive.

(A developing page)

Tilling, digging

For thousands of years, in most parts of the world where people live, they’ve tilled the soil. That is, by digging, forking, or ploughing, they’ve broken up and mixed the soil from the subsurface with that at the top, to grow the food, which has sustained them to this day. Many allotment gardeners do this too, and for very good reasons:

• It mixes the nitrogen-rich, but mineral-poorer organic matter – which tends to accumulate at the surface – with the mineral-rich, but nitrogen-poorer deeper soil (where earthworms tend not to venture) to achieve a good depth of well-balanced, fertile soil.
• It buries the majority of the very many weed seeds – which lie in wait at the surface – to a depth where seedlings won’t survive, especially if each spadeful of soil is inverted as it’s laid.
• It breaks up hardpan, that is, the concretion of soil, as it self-compacts over time to maximum density, owing to the surface tension of rainwater pulling its particles together. This enables the growing of crops such as potatoes, parsnips, leeks, and so on, which would otherwise be strangulated by hard soil.
• It enables the digging in of fertilisers such as manure, and soil improvers, like chalk or lime to temper soil acidity, which would otherwise prevent the growing of important food crops such as the cabbage family.
• It physically destroys pests such as slugs. That is, it’s an organic means of pest control. If neighbouring plots also use this method, and if they’re free of weed thickets, waste heaps, and other hiding places too, then there may often be no need for any further action such as the use of pesticides, traps, nematodes, companion planting, barriers or the rest.
• It aerates the soil, which suppresses many soil pathogens.
• The resulting loosely-packed soil makes weeding far easier, with many readily pulled up roots and all, or removed by the use of hoe and rake. Nor are there any structures, with which weeds and their roots can otherwise become engrossed.
• It enables the disposal of plant waste material, by burying it in the transient trench, which moves across the plot as its soil is turned. That is, there’s no absolute need for space-wasting, long term compost storage. So in turn there’s no need for the expense of buying e.g. non-biodegradable plastic bins, made ultimately from crude oil.
• In areas with high rainfall, the loose soil may easily be heaped into self-supporting raised beds, to prevent its becoming waterlogged.
• There’s no need for the timber to make containment structures, nor the need for the purchase cost and transport to get such materials to the plot.
• There’s no need for the periodic removal of the rotted remains of such timber structures, which only have a very short life in Cardiff’s damp climate, nor the cost and effort of their replacement
• It doesn’t require the purchase and energy-intensive transport of any other growing medium to the plot.
• When the time comes to give up the plot, there aren’t any structures, which will need to be dismantled and removed from site.

When turning compacted soil for the first time, a fork will probably be found easier than a spade to press in by foot, and the soil will usually split quite cleanly along the line of its prongs as it’s levered back. Most gardeners take off typically a 75-150mm (3-6″) length of soil with each fork or spadeful, and this is steady but not hard work. Well-cultivated, looser soil will probably need a spade, or even a shovel, as it might otherwise fall between the prongs of a fork.

Weeds

In mild areas like ours with high rainfall, weeds can be a particular problem, with their almost year-round growing. However, there’re very effective traditional means of control. Where plots are free of encumbrances, the use of hoe and rake isn’t onerous or awkward at all, and is quite speedy. Once this is done, the successful germination of weed seeds can be prevented by mulching – that is covering – with a layer of manure 100mm (4″) or more deep. If this is done after digging over in late autumn or winter following that year’s harvest, then the manure will also break down to enrich the soil for the coming season’s crops.

This approach helps to spread the work of allotment gardening over the whole year, so that it’s not crowded into just a few months, and supports allotment gardening’s being compatible with even fairly busy lives.

This method also has major advantages over covering with weed suppressant fabric or even cardboard (which will not suppress bindweed, horsetail, creeping buttercup, couch grass etc. – all prevalent on PPA site):

• It doesn’t involve the cost of buying, and the practical necessity of storing of the material when not in use.
• It fertilises, and improves soil consistency.
• It provides humus to support soil life. (Earthworm populations are pretty resilient, and can quickly recover. Sufficient eggs and worms are able to survive digging, to ensure that there’re still plenty to supply the voracious appetites of the birds.)
• Invasive problem weeds such as bindweed and horsetails – which can send out searching rhizomes far and deep under sheeting – are markedly more easily eradicated.
• It improves moisture retention meaning less frequent watering.
• It means that most or all of the work in keeping weeds at bay can be done from a standing position, that is, without bending.

Paths between planted areas

Fortunately, the soil on PPA is generally well-drained and isn’t heavy clay. This means that paths between planting beds can be simple beaten earth, trampled soil in other words, and in all but the wettest weather it won’t cling unduly to footwear. The more that they’re used, the better they get, and use prevents weeds from becoming established, just as it does on well-used rural public footpaths. If desired, they can be seeded with tough grass, such as for playing fields, but this isn’t essential. This has several advantages over the recently-popularised woodchip:

• It doesn’t require any synthetic, bought under sheeting, nor the labour of transporting and spreading chips.
• It doesn’t create a demand for materials which, when they rot, will release yet more greenhouse gases.
• It doesn’t create a breeding habitat and food supply for slugs – as do wood chips.
• It doesn’t involve a periodic removal of a layer of rotted-down wood, which otherwise becomes a growing compost for weeds after a few seasons.
• It means that paths can find their own width, as no more than needed for access, and so valuable growing space isn’t wasted.
• It doesn’t acidify the soil, making it unsuitable for quite a number of edible crops.
• It saves a great deal of work.

So, with simply a piece of land, a spade, fork, rake, hoe and wheelbarrow, a gardener can grow potatoes, onions, leeks, garlic, carrots, parsnips, celery, beetroot, beans, salads, and much more, without running even to the need for netting. Also it means that the gardener can start growing almost straight away after taking on a plot.

Many older gardeners still use these self-evidently sustainable, centuries-old methods, and their accumulated knowledge is of inestimable value, but they’re maybe less likely to expound their approach on the internet than those who are trying their hand at newer, less established practices, and so this article’s been written perhaps as a counterbalance to some of that.

PPA Website Team