Opinion: On a quest for the ‘no-till’ allotment

The hours of manual labour needed for an allotment at least give you time to think. Recently I have been pondering the issue occupying everyone concerned about the future of this country: whether Leeds United will make it back to the Premiership this season.

Mostly, though, I’m wrestling with that old quandary; just how much soil to move. What I do on my small patch of dirt has little resemblance to the broad-acre stuff, but since farming remembered that it grows crops in soil, not vermiculite, we do have a joint interest in what happens – and lives – beneath our feet.

See also: Why soil health is top priority for Sussex estate

My ideal, come spring cultivations, is for the beds to emerge from winter with a low weed burden. Sometimes this will have been dealt with by the rare occasions I have ventured on to them to dig up a few leeks or parsnips. The “light forking over” does the job; weeds out, soil left more or less seedbed-ready.

I am fanatical on soil compaction, though; I don’t go on to a bed without just cause, and will shout at my wife if she does. So my chances of facing anything in spring other than a motley collection of tussock grasses, juvenile nettles, chickweed and mallow are slim, especially in the mild winters we get now.

In this story, compost plays both hero and villain. It makes the soil crumbly and workable after a short spell of fair weather, and the earthworms love it. But I can’t cook mine enough to kill the seeds in it, so every shovelful comes back to haunt me with a flush of weeds.

So often the spade comes out, and “bury the bloody lot” becomes the order of the day. Whatever was embarrassing me above ground disappears, to be replaced by clean, brown soil. I know I’m knackering the soil structure my worms have made, but luckily when they are writhing in agony on the surface I can’t hear them scream.

Use glyphosate, you say? If you’ve ever paid out for the tiny quantities you can get as a gardener, you’ll know the answer to that. I’m sure Monsanto have got “we saw you coming” printed on the label somewhere. I just haven’t found it yet.

On the allotments around me, black plastic seems to have caught on wholesale. I dare say it works, but I can’t believe it’s all that good for soil or worms, and it has to be sourced, put down, weighted, taken up again and probably mended (I’m lazy as well as tight).

I’ve tried cover crops, or “green manures” as they are whimsically called in garden centres, but they cost the equivalent of glyphosate to sow a small area. I’ve also been left with a grass weed called Hungarian rye, despite digging it in as instructed, before it seeded.

Of course, the only reason I’m writing this now is the balmy (and barmy) run of fine, dry weather we’ve been having. My first hesitant prods at the soil have turned into wholesale cultivation. One bed responded to just a light hoeing, raising the prospect of the “no-till allotment”, with undisturbed soil and happy worms.

Dream on. Next spring will be cold and wet again, I’ll be chopping the worms in half with a spade, and Leeds United will still be in the Championship.