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I had some Erica winter lettuce in modules which germinated over the last few weeks outside. Yesterday the root balls were frozen so I decided to plant them out – they look OK but I wonder whether they will survive.
Would it be possible to get a succession of winter salad crops by using a greenhouse sand bed with soil heating cable?
For me the best tip that Charles gives on modules is to compact the compost into each module quite firmly. This stops the compost collapsing when you extract the plant.
Before discovering No Dig,I was a good example of a Rotovating gardener. The rotovator created a beautiful fine tilth and it looked brilliant – for a while. But at each rotovation I must have churned up hundreds of weed seeds and by the end of the season my garden was a huge weed patch. It was so bad that I was going to give up vegetable gardening. Last winter I created a new bed system with bark covered paths and adopted No Dig principles. I have been astonished at how few weeds there have been especially as the ground is full of weed seed. The compost mulch obviously works AND reduces the need for watering. The only real problem is bind weed which I am weakening through regular decapitation.
I have grown brassicas successfully this year by using Enviromesh to keep the butterflies off the crops. However this only proved to be partially effective against whitefly which infested all my brassicas. Brussels, Purple Sprouting, Savoys and Kale were absolutely covered. I think a weekly spray of incecticidal soap may have worked – does anyone have a solution for this problem?