MasterKAF and I had been chatting about the kind of allotment that we wanted to have in our garden. Growing fruit and vegetables is a real priority for us because we want to eat more healthily and also save money. Added to that the chance to work outdoors and there is no contest! The one thing that was putting us off a little was the grunt work needed to set up the patches.
We have been looking at the work of a chap called Charles Dowding who promotes the idea of No Dig Gardening.
If we have come across a way to work the land we have without breaking our backs in the process then MrsDTB is one very happy woman. There is a good range of videos on YouTube that explain much better than we can at this stage, how the process works but to start with, we needed to prepare the ground.
Essentially you need to smother the pasture, blocking out all light so that the grass and weeds weaken away. For this, we chose a heavy-duty membrane that will block the light but let water through. Having measured two plots we cut and laid the membrane using tent pegs to secure the edges.
These areas can now be left for a few weeks before it will be time to put a layer of mulch down and replace the membrane again to allow our no dig beds to develop.