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I just wonder if you have any deciduous trees near you – I collect leaves and pile them up for about a year and then use them to mulch in addition to my compost. Not much nutrients in them but they are good at improving the soil structure I find.
As we are called a demonstration allotment we have some beds edged and some not to show the difference – the ones which are edged are edged with old decking which I saved from going on a bonfire one November. There hasn’t yet [1 year only] been a noticeable difference between the beds on slug incidence and you would have thought that last year would show this up. The soil is very sandy. The worst thing about the edging is trying to mow round it and up to it with a rotary mower – we usually have to follow on with a strimmer. The petrol rotary mower is such a pain for this job we have just persuaded the committee to allow us to buy a decent push mower as it must surely be easier and certainly quieter. Actually just thought – you all might be able to help with some recommendations [or otherwise] for a decent push mower – your comments would be much appreciated. Thanks
I have found that fresh leaves tend to blow about and land on someone else’s allotment. If you can get your hands on builders bags they are good to stuff full of leaves and then by the Spring they will have rotted down enough to stay where you put them but are a better mulch if you leave them until next Autumn. Whatever, I find that leafmould helps so much to give the soil a good structure and I have successfully used it on both clay and sandy soil.
I think that both the RHS and Garden Organic [and Monty Don] give advice as they don’t think that gardeners have any good practices. They tell us not to compost blighted foliage as blight can survive on live foliage of either potatoes or tomatoes – they think this is what we have in our compost heaps!! I had a similar thing with adding compost in the autumn. Garden Organic were telling us to add it in the Spring as nutrients are leached out in the winter rains. I asked at the AGM last year why this is their advice when people like Charles and Alys Fowler were advising putting it on in the Autumn. After evading the question a bit they finally admitted that well made compost is not water soluble and is fine put on in Autumn but we might not have well made compost!!! We are taken for mugs I think!
An approach I have found very effective is to put down cardboard or newspaper [in newspaper thickness not single sheets]and cover that with wood chips. This gives a loose surface which is easy to hoe as weeds show through and so is relatively easy to keep on top of. As the woodchips decompose just add some more. They drain well so are a good surface to walk on throughout the year although sometimes you get bits inside your sandals in the summer!
Our allotment site gets woodchips delivered from tree surgeons who are happy to get rid of them and we all help our selves. Although I have in the past made arrangements with a tree surgeon for a one off delivery at home. As they usually have to pay to dump these most firms are more than willing to help us out for free!!
Another side effect of this is that the decomposition of the woodchips is lead by fungi and so they help to spread a lot of beneficial organisms into our soil to help to keep it in good heart in the future – something which is missing with glyphosphate!
I haven’t used any slug pellets yet this year – I have lost a few lettuces though. Yesterday I had a very small black slug on my plate at lunch time – I must wash salad better! At least that was one which wont be eating my lettuces as I washed it down the sink!
we have ground elder coming under the hedges on three sides of our allotment we put down cardboard and pile on wood chips which are supplied for free at the allotment. Down one side where a border goes right up to the hedge we put leaves – or partly made leaf mould – on top of the cardboard – also supplied free – and this manages to keep things under enough control to only have to re apply this once a year. I understand, however, at the recent AGM meeting at Garden Organic that James Wong recommends newspapers rather than cardboard for ground elder as when it gets wet it forms an impenetrable layer for longer. We will certainly give this a try.
my basil in a cold greenhouse is only just showing the 2 seed leaves – sown about a month ago. I sowed some Genovese, red basil [forgotten the name] and some lemon basil. The lemon and the red have germinated but not the Genovese – it may decide to come through in the next few days!!
or is it the down side [one of them] of all the rain we have been having?
we are only watering our polytunnel once a week at the moment – only when we have loads of mature plants like tomatoes, peppers etc do we up it to twice a week during hot weather. We find that if we water well each time then the roots go down to find the water and make better plants than if we watered more frequently and the roots do not go so deep and plants more likely to suffer if the watering ever gets missed. We make sure we water even where things are not planted at the moment and then the moisture builds in the soil.
For me it is the soil not the crops. I would put the compost on the beds which have had less before so that all the soil is in good heart and then everything is possible for any crops – so long as they are likely to grow in this area!
I am trying to mix all my veg up on the plot so that I have individual plants dotted around – no need to cover them – this is meant to confuse pigeons so they don’t find the brassicas. I have tried this at home in raised beds where it has been very successful so far even though we feed birds on the lawn next to the veg beds and the pigeons come to feed along with the more welcome birds.
But on a demonstration allotment I am involved in it was good until we got the snow and then all the brassicas were eaten. We will try with dangling cd’s and foil next year and see if we are more successful! As with a demonstration allotment we do things in different ways to find out which are best – and we have a good supply of brassicas under netting which are doing fine – although the snow did weigh down the netting and needed clearing off and a few supports had to be adjusted.