HAY

[Val Hoskins]

HI, I am just starting no-dig on a well established walled vegetable garden that has for some years previously been well manured and then rotavated or dug.  The most common weeds are shallow rooted like chick weed, groundsel etc.

I have access to some old hay – about 18 months old – do you think I could put it on the soil underneath the mulch, which will be a mixture of home compost and cow manure ?

Also, any advice on wireworms – they have devastated the potato crop except they don’t seem to like red-skinned potatoes as much as white and infested the jerusalem artichokes in winter too.  I have watered in one lot of nematodes and propose doing it again in Spring and presumably every year for the next 5/6 but any miracle eradications gratefully accepted!!

With thanks, Val

 

[charles]

Hi Val, I used a hay mulch on my first acre in 1983, and lost many plantings to slugs.

It was on top which is the best place for it. I would not put anything unrotted in the soil (which is what it becomes if you put compost on top) because it then takes some nutrients to finish rotting down. For sure you get them back in the end though. 

I would stack it in a pile, moist hopefully, to compost for about a year. Maybe grow a squash plant on it next summer.

For wireworm, they are difficult but I thought your nematode treatment should be enough, does it not say that on the packet?

Good luck with the project, it sounds good.

[Andrew Pearman]

Hello Val.

I have been gradually converting some old pasture land into a no-dig garden over the last few years and had some problems with wireworm.  I haven’t used any treatments, or grown any crops to try to reduce them, but have found that they do become less of a problem over time.  I’ve found that thay were most damaging in the first year, but were much less of a proble from the second year on.

I now grow vigorous plants – usully squash or courgette on land just converted from pasture, then use it for other crops in subsequent years.  The curcubits grow so fast that the wireworm don’t seem to damage them at all.

[Rhys]

Fantastic insight – thanks a lot for that……

[Author]

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