Digging for Victory

Three consecutive weekends of digging have transformed Lottie 2 from this....

Through this...

To this...

And (almost) finally this

Not pretty, as the cardboard is waiting on a load of manure/compost to cover it, but it definitely feels like a huge achievement.
We started by rotavating with our ancient Merry Tiller: if you are faced with totally overgrown, weed infested, neglected solid clay ground like this, don't let the doom-mongers put you off rotavating. They'll tell you that you're going to chop up weed roots into a million tiny fragments, that you're spreading weed seeds, that you're creating an impenetrable solid layer of soil. Your response should be "but it's already totally solid and full of weeds and I want to get planting" and just do it.
I dug up the docks first: their huge, deep roots required spades and forks to get out, which started breaking the soil up a bit. These were fed to next door's hens and rabbits, causing much excitement. It's said that docks will grow back from any part of the plant, so they need destroying not composting.
Mr M then rotavated three times. After each go, I went over the ground with a rake, taking out clumps of grass, bindweed roots, nettle clumps, and other perennial weeds: small bits, yes, in many instances but the thing is, I could actually see them, and get them out easily.
Finally, I dug out potato trenches: this stage of hand digging broke up the soil and uncovered yet more bindweed. Planting spuds in trenches with compost and mulching them up over coming months with grass cuttings will add nutrients, but also will improve the texture of the soil. The bare ground means I can see weeds sneaking out of the ground and pounce on them, and when we dig up the potatoes we'll also get even more weed roots out.
So rotavating isn't simply a magic solution of churning over the ground once and sowing delicate veg seeds and all will grow like Topsy. It does still require a lot of manual labour, (three weekends of it in this case) and you need to stick to big stuff like tatties in the first round. But it does get you workable soil that's cleared for you to be able to get things in the ground, without which it's easy to get discouraged when faced with a neglected, weed infested plot like this.
Amazing weather was great impetus, as clay soil like ours is basically workable for three weeks of the year between sticky gloop (winter) and concrete (summer), so I had to take full advantage of this dry, warm spring.
Potatoes, blackcurrant bushes and onion sets planted, now I can enjoy the onset of rain that has inevitably come with the start of the hosepipe ban.
One of the best parts of gardening is being able to appreciate a break in the sunshine for a good downpour!
Stay muddy