[charlesModerator]

 Ideally I aim to spread the manure before growing onions and garlic, in October for garlic and before Christmas for onions – so that it is mostly taken in by worms before planting autumn salad, after the harvest of allium bulbs. This helps to keep slug numbers down in those tender leaves. Through August I am planting salads into soil that has only a thin residual mulch of last winter’s compost and manure.

However, in a dry year such as this, you should be alright with compost or well rotted manure that has been spread this summer, and I would expect your autumn salads to grow well.

[charlesModerator]

 Yes I would grow brassicas again. Some people grow them two years out of three with success. Having the soil healthy will help and the extra organic matter is good for them too.

The whole question of rotation is usually made to sound too complicated and it is more flexible than often presented. A good guide is to work out what you want to grow, which is unlikely to fall neatly into the normal categories of rotation such as potatoes – brassicas – legumes – salads, alliums or whatever.  Then simply rotate as much as possible, according to your desired harvests, so that vegetables of the same plant family *brassicas, alliums, umbellifers etc) are not grown consecutively, except in unusual circumstances such as you outline here.

In my gardens it is often just two years between lettuce and tomatoes, and three of four years between alliums and legumes, depending partly on when space becomes available in summer for plantings of autumn and winter vegetables.

 

[charlesModerator]

Still time to sow calabrese for the late autumn and kale for winter. Maybe a few late carrots.

Also chicories for radicchio such as Palla Rossa types, and any kind of endive.

Parsley for winter use.

Last sowings of lettuce, I like cos ones for autumn as their upright habit results in less mildew.

But I think you are a little early for lambs lettuce as it often gets mildew when growing in dry weather, unless it is going to rain a lot in September!

 

[charlesModerator]

 I was asked this recently by email:

"I set loads of salad seeds but in small trays, I found when I came to transplant them that I had to disturb their roots so that when I transplanted them into the garden it takes 2-3 weeks for them to establish themselves.  Do you sow salad seeds individually into modular cells? "

The question has the answer embedded in it, I sow in modules to avoid root damage when planting out. Most plants are growing away within a week on average, longer in cold weather and quicker in warm weather. But modules need watering in, both at planting time and, if it stays dry, a couple of times afterwards at two day intervals or so, until roots have found their way down into the soil.

At the moment, in July, plants are growing away incredibly fast.

[charlesModerator]

 It is at the Selwyn Hall, Box, near Corsham postcode SN13 8NT, at 7.30pm

[charlesModerator]

 yes the talk is open though it is organised by Box gardeners and they may ask for a small fee if you are not a member, hope to see you there

[charlesModerator]

 Yes, planks harbour slugs and are best avoided, except in small gardens where they can help to concentrate fertility and define a special area for growing. Slightly mounded beds is best for larger areas, with paths of soil, with some compost on top to help with weeding. Permanent plastic and membranes are horribloe and wood chips get in the way after a while. Think of paths as a valuable extension of your growing area, with soil that plants can root into. Mine are 15-18" (39-45cm) for four foot beds (1.2m).

[charlesModerator]

 After six months under light excluding mulch (plastic in your case) the weeds will be much weakened. I would remove it at Christmas, re-mulch with an inch or so of well rotted organic matter and then, in March or so you may see re-growth of a few brambles etc which should be dug out. Similarly any bindweed you see after that, keep trowelling it out. Apart from those I would hope your plot will then be pretty clean and the organic matter on top can be knocked around with a rake or fork to make a tilth for sowing and planting.

[charlesModerator]

 It sounds like your garlic was a little over-ripe, though still good to store and eat. Most garlic is coming ready now and is best harvested before the top is all yellow, then there is time to sow or plant dwarf beans, beetroot, carrots, autumn salads etc.

[charlesModerator]

 Hi Ladbrokes and welcome to the site.

I have found through the past year that it works best to have cardboard as TOP layer of a mulch. When buried under compost, it rots more quickly and weeds can then grow through it, whereas it stays dry and impermeable when on top, weighted down with a few stones, logs or whatever. Although after two or three months it may have weathered to the point of needing another layer of cardboard on top.

Black plastic is easier in this respect and can sometimes be scrounged from someone who has finished with a sheet.

In your case I would dig out the few remaining brambles, as it sounds like you have sorted most of them, and I would keep pulling bindweed to stop it regaining strength. I know of no ‘cure’ for bindweed, except to keep on top of it. A thick mulch certainly helps, but won’t kill it. Shoots that do appear are easier to pull out or remove with a trowel.

Weeding is a job which never goes away but after taking time to improve and clean soil, it becomes much easier, and I hope you keep moving in that direction. The first year or two are always the hardest when taking over infested soil.

Can anyone else offer some tips that have worked?

[charlesModerator]

 Your earth paths sound fine, my paths are all simply soil which is partly covered in compost which birds kick off the beds (they have no wooden sides), and paths of bare earth are best for having less slugs.

[charlesModerator]

 It sounds like the dreaded cabbage root fly. For some reason I rarely have many here but other gardeners who suffer them lay a round or square of card on the soil around the stem of each plant (about 8-12" diameter) which serves as a barrier to stop eggs laid by flies from entering the soil. It is too late in your case, usually a barrier is laid at planting, sorry!

Sometimes they are present, but scarcely evident because damp conditions allow new roots to form. Not this year, in the dry weather, when plants need every root to be working and struggle to make new ones – and after July we may expect similar problems from lettuce root aphids. Their only remedy I know of is water.

[charlesModerator]

 Hi Pauline

Yes it may seem strange especially when couch can be such a fiendish weed to deal with. I have noticed in my heavy soil that couch is mostly in compacted soil around field margins, where tractors had pounded and squashed the soil more than in the middle of the field. So that suggests it develops where soil is lacking air. 

Then I have noticed that after six months to two years (depending on the infestation) of mulching with some compost and manure, with cardboard or any other light excluding material on top, the couch disappears and also is less inclined to spread in from the grassy edges where it had also been rampant. Which suggests to me that once soil is well structured (by compost-fed worms and other soil life) there is less need for couch roots to open up the soil and allow air to enter.

Sorry if that all sounds rather esoteric but my experience over the years leads me more and more to see patterns in weed growth that suggest a reason for their presence. Above all, leaving soil undisturbed is the most powerful way of avoiding too much weed growth. The opposite case is abundant chickweed after soil has been rotovated…

In your case, the tarpaulin will surely be weakening the couch and it will be more effective if you can spread some reasonably well rotted organic matter on the soil underneath it, thus encouraging more soil organisms to proliferate.

[charlesModerator]

 The compost heap is its best destination at present, preferably mixed with 40-50% paper and cardboard.

Using mown grass as a mulch is a tempting way to smother weed seedlings but it encourages slugs and can rot into a slimy layer on top of the soil. Later in the season it may also contain lots of grass and weed seeds.

As long as you can add enough brown materials to the compost heap, at the same time as all that grass, it should transform into something more valuable.

[charlesModerator]

 Interesting question. I do wonder what the nursery mean: straw is a key component of mushroom compost and makes it what it is – light and fluffy when rotted. As for nitrogen, I wonder what problem they see there? I really feel that a lot of advice is offered which sounds technical, ‘scientific’, but with little validity. I was advised not to use mushroom compost, or green waste compost, because they are ‘too alkaline’. Then today at a talk, somebody said they had been advised to avoid green waste compost because of its acidity! Someone will always find a reason….

I have used spent mushroom compost for 25 years with great success, on vegetables, flowers and fruit. I advise you to buy 10 tons for £200 delivered, it sounds a great deal. My only question is how rotted the compost is: if a lot of straw still stand s out, it needs composting some more (say 2 months) before spreading where vegetable seeds are to be sown. But it can be spread around established plants or where vegetable plants are to be set out.

Composted bark – I would avoid it for vegetables, unless extremely well composted with few woody bits discernible. Use it around perennial flowers etc. Bark is more mulch than manure and also encourages a lot of woodlice.

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