Overgrown Allotment full of Trash (Can This Be Converted Into a Productive Garden?) 

Whilst your efforts are admirable, my advise to you is just focus on clearing one area at a time, make one growing bed and get somewhere sowed. The keep repeating the process until all your plot has been converted to productive beds. Ive seen too many new plot holders put a solid month into clearing the entire plot, then only to return to the entire plot regrowing grass and weeds. That can be hugely crushing to see all your work cancelled out as the days get longer and warmer. Start at the highest area and set out one bed and start cultivation. Im intersted to see you succeed, so will subscribe.

I waited for seven years for my allotment and when I went down for the first time in huge excitement and opened the gate, I cried. They weren’t tears of joy……..it was landfill site and the neighbours had clearly been nicking the soil. It’s smaller than yours so we dug the whole thing over, drew up plans, placed the beds and terraced it because it it’s on a slope. Planning was important because we could then put one bed in and plant something and watch stuff grow whilst we worked on the rest of the plot. It was incredibly hard work and so worth it - it’s a thing of beauty now, keep going!

Hi from Scotland i am shocked you got offered a plot that is just disgraceful, why are the previous plot holders aloud to let the plots get in this state and shame on the plot holders that have used this plot as a dumping ground ,our plot holders would have been on a warning to keep the plot tidy and planted up ,and when you give up your plot it has to be rubbish free as soon as somone leaves our plots are offered to the next person on the list if you have people 9n the committee shame on them for letting people away with this mess good luck you have a lot of hard work ahead anne from Scotland 😊

Skip sacks, I collected lots of used free skip sacks, dug up all the weeds and dumped them in the skip sacks. Underneath all the weeds I found a rotten kitchen complete with drawers, a load of plastic, a ton of rotten wood and an old gnome. I kept the gnome. The good news is that the skip sacks came in surprisingly handy, I eventually ended up with some great soil and grew masses of potatoes in them. I have the biggest grow bags of any plot holder now and I don't have to bend down too much 😂 Good luck with your plot!

A good old bonfire is always a start! My plot was similar when i got it. lots of old carpet and plastic bottles, broken watering cans, pallet wood and brambles. I burnt a lot of it as well as taking it to the tip. Then I dug one row at a time, and straight away planted something in the row, working my way back. It was really satisfying, and as well as planning and clearing, the crops started to grow too! I lost a lot of weight and my health improved as well as my happiness :) Happy gardening!! x

I'm in the USA and LOVE watching new allotment holders.lol.As soon as I see they are new holders, I subscribe because I like seeing the process of turning something horrible to beautiful.

Cleared two new plots in the past two years. both the same and is the same for every new plot holder i speak to. THE RUBBISH. Associations need to really focus on this, people just treat them like bins. SO much plastic, used for a couple of years that then breaks into a million pieces

The pallet structure will be the outline for the compost heap and sited in the middle of the plot so it’s the shortest distance to everywhere on the plot

Depressing to contrast the length of national allotment waiting list (as you rightly point out) with the number of clearly neglected plots scattered all over Britain at this time of spiralling food prices etc. Good luck!

Oh, A+++ take on landscaping fabric. That stuff is the asbestos of gardening.

Welcome to my world! Here in portugal we bought a house with land, and it is a nightmare of a landfill! Since we have a dog and children in the family, we can not live there until the land is cleaned. We found old bullets, rusty shards of metal, the infamous weed control plastic fabric, old shoes, nails, glass bottles, shards of glass, etc, etc, etc. It's demoralizing, but this is a process that MUST be done, so we stopped complaining. Once It's all over, you will laugh about this. Have hope!

No excuse for people to be waiting 15 yrs for an allotment plot! There’s loads of unused, or neglected plots on these sites. Is there no time limit , say 2 yrs if it hasn’t been used. Seems very unfair people have these plots, and do nothing with them! The rubbish is disgraceful! Surely these sites are looked after by the council, or a committee to stop this sort of thing! Good luck with clearing this rubbish tip, and will be checking back to see progress. Thanks for sharing.

Your enthusiasm is so contagious. I'm what you can usually call an "urban depressive" with the opposite of a green thumb ( the thumb of darkness, to be more ominous). And you actually make that a place that not only would I want to visit, I would kind of like to have one.

Congratulations on getting a plot, looks like you have your work cut out. I’m really looking forward to seeing your progress, good luck 😊👍🌱

Pallet collar beds are your best bet with that flooding .I made the same mistake with the plastic .One tip is to use a cordless vac to get out the tiny plastic pieces and bin them .

i got an allotment recently, this summer was my first full season. Its a bit like being a really shit archeologist for a few months. You keep thinking you've finished and then you find another layer of disintegrating plastic. I love it though, it's worth it in the end.

Good Luck turning your plot into a productive vegetable garden. I've subscribed so that I don't miss a moment of your journey. The allotments look unloved so maybe your enthusiasm will motivate others to have the same level of motivation that you clearly have. 🤞🤞👍👍

Looking forward to watching your plot evolves.

Your lot looks cleaner than the one a grandfather took over..in Wales....plus your young , stronger...and his is on a steeper slope.

Congratulations on receiving such a prize. Something like that is impossible to find in Vancouver, with or without historic garbage. I hope the six neighbours who vouched for you assist, if only by bringing by a doughnut & coffee. 😃 You look like you've not only got the physical wherewithal but the foundational knowledge to make this a little paradise. This is so satisfying to watch and I haven't even broken a sweat. Wishing you the very best of luck!

If you notice that your plot is always waterlogged (even after getting rid of the weeds and plastic) then I think a little canal/waterway that brings the water in a settling pond would be the best. At least you get tons of free water to use - or you could make the settling pond out of gravels so the water can get absorbed back into the soil. This is my idea, of course - am sure there are easier ways to deal with it! Good luck

For a plot to be that overgrown, the council must have left it for a long time between the previous holder leaving and you taking it over. I've seen this time and again and it just doesn't make sense. You would think the council or local parish council, would want a quick turnaround to get the money. Good luck with your venture and I look forward to coming along on this journey with you.

We are in US in North Carolina. We just bought to a couple acres that are trashy and have a lot of mystery going on. I look forward to moving through this process with you. Please keep us informed. Congratulations on your allotment 😊🤗

Wow, a traditional sized plot 👍. You don’t get those to begin with on the allotment site I’m on, just a small portion of one. However, there are always a number of people that take on even a small area and then fade away over the course of their first year. There is also currently the problem of ‘lock-down’ sign ups, who have reached the top of the list, but now don’t have the same time or interest, so incredibly, the town council are having difficulty finding genuine people to take on the several vacant plots on the site 🤪. At least they haven’t been allowed to get in the state of yours 😂. I think it’s well worth the effort now, to get the plot in a reasonable condition and sort out the drainage issues, but I do agree with others who have suggested starting to actual grow in a limited space and expand out as time allows. Good luck with it and best wishes, Gerry

This will be fun! You can do it! 💚

just joined you and i can see the fire in your eyes for getting this done and making it yours .best of luck to you. good job you have a van with all that rubbish to move.seems unfair to give someone a plot in such a state, but you are the man to turn it around.

Get a Sheen flamegun, and a rotavator. Worth their weight in gold for a plot that size. I had a wood and brick greenhouse with an old steam heating system on mine that had been completely destroyed in a storm, glass everywhere and the structure took some removing. Secret is little and often with an allotment. Paths are best laid to grass - it supresses weed and can be kept tidy with an old mower/strimmer.

A mate of mine had to move plots as there was so much water accumulating on his, he had a lot of clay underneath the topsoil! Theres a lot of hard work ahead for you but dont let it get you down! Think of the positives! Good on you for taking it on, best of luck

I’m month two into owning a half plot (12m x 11m). It’s infested with bindweed and couch grass and it’s clay too so it’s incredibly hard to walk around in the rain. On top of that, the previous owner didn’t actually plan anything out and used the whole plot as a mystery seed throwing session for 18 months, and threw metal arches all over the plot and put his turf over them, so I can’t even strim without the risk of; 1. Breaking my ankle because of uneven ground and 2. Whipping up a piece of metal that will kill the strimmer. So I’m hand digging one half and covering the other half and get the soil ready for next year.

Good luck mate - the previous holders should be ashamed of themselves. Someone needs to invent a sieve that can detect and isolate and collect microplastics - before we all get poisoned. Newly subscribed. Love a project - a challenge - and you sure do have one.❤

Well done. My wife and I cleared two allotments one after the other in a similar condition seven years ago. It’s highly satisfying work. We are now rearranging the layout of them as due to climate change, we get less snow and more rain in northern Scotland and consequently flooding. You have to be adaptable don’t you to be an allotment holder.

love this

Looking forward to seeing how you get on with this, I'm a fellow allotment holder and took on my plot in Bexhill in Sussex around 2 years ago, and was also faced with a mountain of work before shaping it into what it is today - a productive, interesting and lovely place to escape to. Living in a flat, with only a balcony for outside space, my allotment is my back garden away from home! Looking forward to following your journey with yours, you have made major progress!

Hang in there!! The end result of a bountiful garden in near. Been there and still doing the work!!

That’s one big job that you have on your hands but anything you manage on that plot will enhance it ten fold, how the previous owners felt it was correct to use that much plastic is beyond my thinking when a little bit of regular hard work would have kept it all in good shape. Good luck and I look forward to the next episode 💪🏻

Looking forward to seeing progress

I went to keep digging my ditch today 😅🎉 can't keep away, it will be worth it in the end! Can't wait to see your progression 😊

Will be well worth it

Savour this experience. Being able to do good work and see that you're making progress is a sweet and rare thing.

Im looking forward to watching you transform this plot

How exciting for you. It certainly looks a huge project. But piece by piece you will make it your own. Good luck and I hope you get satisfaction and some great food and flowers for your labours. I was utterly bewildered after watching a few allotment RU-vid videos to see not just plastic left behind but also the amount that continues to be purchased and brought onto plots. Cheap plastic potting goods or poly tunnel covers that hardly last a season and are then thrown into pile or off to local landfill. The leaching of toxins and production of microplastics is real and I hope allotment management invest in educating plot holders.

Great video - looking forward to next one

Regardless this is going to be an instructional adventure I'll be eagerly awaiting updates.

Pallets can make excellent compost containers, which might explain why they are in the middle!

Great video

Getting an allotment overgrown and rubbish on it is quite common. The hardest bit is clearing the plot and then removing the roots of weeds that will regrow. When you have cleared the top growth, cover the ground with cardboard to kill a lot of the weeds off whilst you cultivate other areas. The amount of water on the plot is a big concern. You are right little and often is the right approach. Wooden pallets are useful for compost bins and the wood to hold your netting down. You may have weed fabric membrane carpet burried making the water issue worst

The pallets are a compost area pal. I would move to bottom end of your plot. Keep up the hard work little and often is the key buddy.

worth the sub mate following from nz

I am just clearing the last 30m2 of my 125m2 plot in portsmouth uk, I’ve had it since summer 2020. As others have advised, allocate a section to start with. Other recommendations based on my experience of what not to do/do : my plot had multiple large tree stumps, 2 fruit trees had large tires (illegal on site) around them. Concrete foundation and brick wall of a greenhouse (illegal to use concrete) The entire site was a rubbish dump for 30 years . The allotment officer later told me they shouldn’t have given my plot as not suitable for use. Was given it by a temp. But it’s a great plot now. 1. He had council workers come in with a mini digger , and industrial chain saw to remove the tires (steel interiors to be cut), they cleared a truck load of rubbish. This was after the base initial clearing strumming they do normally. So I would ask for as much help clearing from the council as you can. 2. Make safe all the holes by marking and covering with wood. Dont fill them in yet, maybe later you’ll be able to see their purpose possibly drainage or in situ composting/ crop storage clamps. Take photos and draw up a site layout, and mark where holes etc are. This will also help you plan where to put structures and beds. Mark north- south and dimensions.. 3.. Also mark on your design plan where all the existing good perennials are, rhubarb, asparagus fruits trees etc. be careful. Dont move good plants yet, and decide where to put new plants until you’re further on with clearing. . 4. When clearing be careful so you don’t kill good dormant plants ! Try to clear just dead brush and dig up obvious weeds such as bind weed around them. 5. As you clear push a fork down at least a foot . Check if there’s anything under the soil - after the mini digger cleared top area, and I rotivated ( I probably wouldn’t recommend that in retrospect, although it did help uncover rubbish more quickly it upset the soil and critters too much)I then later found over 25 paving slabs bricks, hose pipes, bike wheels etc a spade depth down or more. I was just clearing anything toxic / plastic and didn’t expect that. Rose bushes and grape vine were rooted over a 3 deep layer of paving slabs for example. Used to be the surface level I guess and 30 years later just buried. But no good for drainage when huge blocks of areas and slabbed over. You’ll also see where the old paths were then too lol. Helped me guess where the rest of the slabs buried were :-) last week I pulled out 1 large paving slab, a breeze block, a cast iron fire grate and underneath that was the bike wheel, all in less than 1m2. 6. Start compost, dead wood/ branches/leaf piles from what you clear. Get some tonne bags and add the rubbish to that over time, and do less rubbish trips to recycling. 7. So don’t try and finish such clearing before starting using, clear a 5x5m space at a time ready to propagate this season, and expect to take a few years to completely clear and heal, make healthy, the whole plot. All the best k

Companion planting worked really well for my tomatoes, Nasturtiums worked very well and a great resource for composting as they're very prolific 👍

It broke my heart for you to see what you were given. Only truly impressive person could take on this task. I'm impressed!

Turn your ditch into a french drain, it will be much more effective than a standard ditch, quite easy to do it yourself with a bit of research, it will clear all of that waterlogged ground easily.

Stay positive fella, pace yourself, will work out just fine.

Great job, my plot was so overgrown when I took it over 30 years ago, the weeds hid so much rubbish. I took a diffeent approach and started digging with a fork and clearing as i went burying the top growth, seemed to work well. I did pick up all the large visible rubbish before starting digging though

You have a messy plot to deal with but in taking manageable steps that dont over face you and you will get there Im looking forward to seeing your progress

Ugh, seems like such a huge job, but since you won the golden choc bar I guess you will create something wonderful in the long run. New follower from Nova Scotia, Canada, like your work ethic and down to earth humour.

Good luck I’m sure it will bloom and grow

There is clearly a 'type' of allotmenteer who uses their allotment as a dump. I live in a retirement complex wnich has very large grounds, one section of which is designated as residents' allotments. Until last year, only one section was used by only one resident, and having access to it was one of the main reasons I chose this complex to live in. Another lady (who also moved to the complex last year) and I have taken over a section each and the original bloke had an almost-hysterical fit when we made remarks about the rusty filing cabinet (!?), the kitchen sink and draining board, the two dining chairs, the broken pallet ... etc etc ... which encroach onto the other two (ie our) allotments. 'All allotments are untidy!' he claimed - but I'm significantly older than he is, and pulled rank accordingly. 'When I had my allotment in XXY (a local allotment gardens which regularly wins prizes), I'd've been thrown off if it'd been in the state this one's in.' Perfectly true, and nothing he could say to that! He's done a bit of tidying - but I'm still sick of looking at the blasted filing cabinet every time I go over there. I think I'll grow a 6ft screen of runner beans to hide it; they might conveniently fall over in a high wind and bury it completely!

Make “steps” and put in walls to achieve flat planting areas. You will have the front edges of those “walls”as easy picking as one can stand on the lower level and not have to bend over as much. Strawberries would be lovely on the top edge of the “wall”. Put in field drain pipe on each planting level and feed them into a rain water collection barrels that are place on the next level down…

🐝Thanks for the great video 🌻subscribed

i dont think i would even bother once i seen the water logging

What a great job you're doing! My hands are itching to pitch in! A lot of work, but imagine the end results. Perhaps a willow hedge could help in absorbing some of the water, if it's not too much of a job to maintain and prune.. Hostas and iris prefer moist soil, even if this is absolutely water logged.. Plastic is such a poison to the earth..

Looks like you found the Peckham Spring.

I soo can't wait to see how this turns out. Inspired! Regards from down under.

That's a huge plot. I manage a site and our largest isn't half that size. As for forcing your Council to legally provide an allotment, I believe it has to be cost effective for them to do. so if it will cost too much they can get out of providing one. That is also a very badly managed site. I would never give a plot out in that condition. It would never get that bad on my site. With the excessive water logging, I would strim and clear all the mess first as you are doing. Then look at delineating the boundaries. Then see if you can put in some drainage channels to clear the water. It's going to have to dry out a lot before you'll be able to do much with it. I hope they have let you have it free for the first quarter at least.

Flytipping is rife in the UK. It's unbelievable

Job and half there bud, good luck.

If anyone can do it you and the boys can!* *biceps

Start at the top, one section at a time

I got my allotment 3 years ago and had great success to start with turning it around. I was going to start a channel but couldn't put the energy into. However ill health struck badly and has stopped the progress. I need a way to get my pathways done without putting strain on my back. Unfortunately my plot is in the middle of a block so cant get things like woodchip deliveries close enough and cant afford little bags from the garden centre

Maybe you could have a small pond in the natural area where the water gathers?

You might consider "lasagna" gardening ...goggle it...raised bed methods. :). Good luck!

You need to rent a mini excavator and completely clear the plot. It doesn't cost a lot and you don't need a special licence. You will be able to easily situate and dig your drainage ditch and you will still be doing the work yourself. It may be that the water is coming from another property and you can either make use of the water for irrigation or just run the ditch straight down the edge of the property. While you are manually doing little patchwork jobs, you are wasting all this time when you could be preparing the soil for planting. While you have the excavator, you could use it to lay down your initial layer of compost and manure. There is a time for hands on manual labour and a time to use machinery to achieve a good starting point. Once you are not so overwhelmed by all the rubbish and plastic, it will be easy to see how to progress. You could recycle the planks from the pallets in a hundred different uses in the garden, from walkways, to raised beds, to a cover over your ditch, to repairing the shed. Good luck. Getting your first crop in and growing will give you all the energy and enthusiasm you need for future projects in your garden.

you could make ditch all the way round for collecting the water and indicating the border

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You have a very large plot

Good luck with your new plot! 🍀 I've also just taken on a plot (half the size of yours) and I waited a year and a half for it 🥲It's in pretty much the same state as yours and I've found it really upsetting when I think I've cleared one little area, only to dig down and find another layer of rubbish 🙈 (or come back after a few days away and find another plot holder has dumped more of their rubbish?!). I'm looking forward to watching more of your videos so that they get me motivated to keep going with my own plot! Good luck again 🙂🍀

By 'eck, that's a bad one matey. BUT there's nothing insurmountable, especially if you can get the waterlogging fixed.

I can only pray that a check for wildlife was done before using those horrid strimners, hate those things after seeing images of hedgehogs that have suffered horrific injuries from people using them who didn't bother to check the areas to be worked on first & overgrown areas make ideal habitat for those animals, although hopefully not in that patch if it was also full of litter.

Do you have to pay for the allotments? Are they technically public land? This is fascinating. I recently took over an overgrown plot of land in our parking lot. Someone must have dumped gravel there because it is insanely rocky, even by New England standards.

Waited 3 years for my allotment from council, got letter on a thursday, following monday git first letter threatening legal action for existing rubbish on site, sorted that. Week later another threatening legal over height of hedge, sorted that. Letters kept coming whilst i struggled to clear rubbish from previous tennents, in end got fed up of legal letters etc and no assistance so after a year it got too much hassle.

Good luck At least it looks like your fellow "allotmenters" are friendly, which is very useful. Hopefully the people who "run" the place are good too, my sister has "fun", with them being very negative, even though the plot she had was in a bad state when she took it on, although nowhere near as bad as yours. The big question - are you going to go "No dig" ?

They lay plastic and grow on top of it,then another layer and so on ...we clear plots on my site were a plot holder has been on for many years and that's common .....those pallets were his compost bin I imagine

I made raised beds

The pallets is a structure for a compost bin 😂 maybe strange place in the middle but they had their own reasons for it I'm sure. So much cheaper to make your own compost mate x

Should have just rented a utility tractor and raked all the stuff out into one pile and then worked on that pile a little at time leaving the rest of the land flat and cleared. /shrug, but that's just me...I'm lazy like that.

More time laps would be great. Talk and work

How is the hot composter going?

all those small pieces of plastic are a pain in my eyes, you might need to dig out and remove the top soil layer. i commend your work, subscribed and gave you your number 666 like on this video, i hope thats not an omen to come :D

Maybe they were creating a wild-life plot with multiple ponds? I can see allotments having an initial purpose when first proposed in the past as in growing stuff; whereas how they're used nowadays should reflect the needs of the person maintaining them such as a place to relax and enjoy what they've created. Deliberately creating a mill-stone around one's neck by growing too much stuff to eat, seems daft to me.

i send you sunny spells sir 🍀

Good lad getting stuck in until it's dark The amount of litter about is awful. Far worse now than i can remember.. you obviously love the outdoors, like me, so you're an ideal plotholder. Add tons of compost, leafmould etc and it'll be great. My plot was a dump too, cleared the lot of plastic, glass, carpet. There were layers of weed fabric, one on another. It's ver satifying to have gotten rid of it.

I wonder if a scythe would work here? plastics aside, of course.

I had worse when I was back in the UK, trees covered in brambles... 😂

Omg, that plastic is poison, I wouldn't dare to grow food in that soil. Maybe you can consider raised beds with fresh new soil?

Yes weed barrier plastic sheet does not work. It ends up giving you much more work trying to get weeds pulled out of it as it disintegrates. Horrible stuff. It might give you three seasons benefit and then it will be an unsightly mess. Much better to mulch and use gravel. Every bit of plastic and man made materials that you bring into a garden or allotment must be considered because it is so horrible when it becomes brittle and useless. Think clay and wood and metal

Looks like its been dormant for decades

OIL on the water? Test the soil .....

Doesn't the Allotment act contain legislation on waiting times for allotments? I don't think it's reasonable for a council to say "Yes we follow the law and offer allotments to those who want one...just one caveat, the waiting time is a decade". I think if that went to court it would be judged that that isn't really providing allotments. Also I think councils should be obliged to maintain empty plots. It's a disgrace to offer allotments in the state yours was in.

Rent some goats