The effort that you put into the plot will depend on the soil that you have.
I was lucky that the local waterboard had commandeered several plots some 10 years ago, dug a huge hole, and built a storage tank out of concrete big enough to house 15 double decker buses. The site was covered in and new topsoil was added. My soil is therefore black and sandy and easy to dig.
Double digging is a method that involves digging two levels down. The topsoil layer is removed and underlying subsoil has organic matter dug in to another spade depth.
This is for the purist and I have never felt that I have to do it, instead I have dug trenches for specific plantings including runner beans and celery.
There are several problems with clay soil but they can be overcome. Unless you have a new allotment site, your plot will have been cultivated in the past. However the soil will still be heavy and better dug in the autumn as the clumps will be broken up by the action of frost.
These are usually split into two categories, annual and perennial.
It is the perennial weeds that can cause the most problems and they include couch grass, thistles, nettles, dock, bindweed, horsetail, ground elder and Japanese knot weed. I mention these because they were all on my plot.
Annual weeds are far too numerous to list, but as they are controlled easily with a hoe they are not such a problem except when planting seeds when the row of emerging seedlings can be hidden by the annuals.
You will need digging fork and spade, not the smaller border ones unless you are physically unable to manage the bigger tools. This is an investment for many years and although B&Q sell them for a few pounds each, I would recommend stainless steel. Screwfix direct sell them for only £11.99 each.
A rake will help to clear the ground and prepare the seedbeds.
Once the weeds start to grow a hoe is an essential aid.
The first job is to decide whether you want to be organic or not. I decided to be as organic as possible but not to worry too much about meeting all the rules and decided to use the weedkiller Glyphosate to assist in the clearing of the site. As it will be used in the first year and does not leave a soil residue, then I will be able to be organic in the future.
I started by marking out the plot with sticks and used plastic clothes line to mark straight rows as I had decided to use deep beds.
The photo shows a section dug that is big enough for the first deep bed.
Before digging I skimmed the weeds off the surface with the spade and carefully removed every bit of perennial weed roots as I dug.
The advantage of deep beds was that every time I had an 8x4foot area dug I had enough for a bed which I could then plant. The picture below, taken from the shed roof in October shows all the 30 beds. The plastic covered one at the bottom occupies the first area dug.
The idea behind deep beds is that the soil never needs to be stood on again, and extra depth of topsoil is achieved by removing soil from the paths between and putting it in the beds. Rotation of crops is easy because you know exactly where plants were grown previously.
Beds can be coverd in a modular system either by polythene or netting. which will protect newly planted seeds or plants from birds or other animals.
