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Jonathan
Ai have tried them all and all have their uses.
1. Runner Beans certainly like comfrey tea to swell pods. I believe brassicas also like it, but have not tried it out.
2. Both tomatoes and potatoes happily respond to comfrey chop n drop strategies. I have just put part of my latest cut under a pear tree, hoping that it breaks down over the next 10 weeks to support the maturing fruit.
3. Compost accelerates its formation beautifully if comfrey is added after hot composting is complete: I fill daleks with kitchen waste and top that up with initially hot composted material, cardboard, comfrey and nettles if available. It produces great stuff.
This year I am also maturing composts using biodynamic ‘balls’ containing each of the five preparations. The first maturation this spring was very quick, obviously will not know until 2020 how well things grow in it, but to touch it feels wonderful.
I did my apple thinning much earlier this year, in early June, just after the drop started to occur. Due to a very sunny May, fruit were well advanced, allowing thinning to proceed.
As a result, fruit are much larger, much earlier this year, which suggests that thinning as early as practicable may have some value.
I must concur that no dig is great for broad beans.
Also concur that heavy rain and June sun are a great growth stimulus. Parsnips, onions, potatoes, corn, soil-based tomatoes, beetroot, chard, dwarf beans and pole beans have all shot ahead thanks to 4 inches of rain this month, around double the June average here.
I have also cut my comfrey plants three times this year already: most unusual. Normally it is 5-6 weeks per cycle, this year it has been four weeks.
We had new neighbours move in to the north of our veg plot and they replaced an old hedge with new trees and suddenly bindweed has sprung up. Obviously they did nothing evil, but an opportunity may have emerged for bindweed to spread.
Just shows that anything and everything can potentially be a rogue event…..
This year I have dwarf beans morning sun side of pole beans and they are now flowering beautifully around day 48.
I have just transplanted my second PACA lettuce onto the afternoon sun side, so we shall see if they do well in semi shade during high summer.
Canasta works well and is vigorous. I got mine from Seeds of Italy in the past.
Definitely sounds like compost issues to me Jacqui.
I sowed my tomatoes on April 7th this year and my Sungold and Zenith had been transplanted twice by day 19 as they grew so fast. It was a very sunny April here, but I just potted on into local garden centre own-brand MPC with a smidgen of rock dust, fungi and friendly bugs and all nine strains grew like the wind. They had to be held back indoors for a few days in early May when the nights were 3-5C, but they were in final pots this year after 5-6 weeks.
If you have space inside to keep 12-18 8cm pots on a sunny windowsill, growth in the first four weeks can be very rapid indeed with later sowings. I have experimented sowing from early Feb to late April and the only reason to sow early in my experience is to deliberately get a crop in mid to late June. If you intend putting into final positions in mid May, plants will be plenty big enough sown in early April if they mostly live indoors.
Obviously if they live in a greenhouse, things may be a bit different.
I do normally germinate in module trays and when transplanted they do very well.
I was experimenting to see if direct sow would work but it did not. Two sets of beans happily germinated and transplanted so far this year. One more lot to go.
Yes, maybe! No fishmongers have traded through a retail outlet in my neck of the woods for twenty years! The other places seem worth investigating…
Too late for this year, but spring cabbage will work if you are not planting out your beans before 20th May.
Ditto overwintering chard, which usually goes to seed just as you wish to plant out beans.
For when your beans are growing, I grew a very satisfactory beetroot crop on the morning sun side of the beanpoles: transplanted outfrom modules in late May, then harvested October-early December.
I tried dwarf beans the afternoon sun side, but they did not germinate well.
I started sowing leeks and Zeebrune shallots in polystyrene tubs last year, which gives deeper rooting and continued growth for eight weeks to pencil size. JB Packaging sells a variety of sizes and depths.
As for sowing date, I have started sowing later to avoid the spring allium leaf miner breeding season: sowing after new moon in April is my go-to date.
Unless you want huge leeks, planting out mid June is perfectly timely and fits better with having an early crop first like radish, sprung turnip or broad beans.
This depends on how much you try to push boundaries, as well as how tiptop your soil is.
The earlier you transplant out, the more you must plan for losses. The less time you have practiced no dig and mulched with prime compost, the more you must plan for losses.
Transplanting beetroot or lettuce in mid March in year two of no dig, you may need to bank on 50% losses needing to be replaced with back ups. Transplanting early April in year four and you may need 10% or less back ups (of course depends on how mild the spring is too).
If you want a dozen early lettuce or beetroot clumps, I would sow/prick out 18-24 into modules and keep the excess until the final transplants have established healthily.
Once you get into late April, you will likely have fewer losses (unless slugs are a problem) but may sow a good few extra to just select the most vigorous seedlings.
I have saved tomato seeds for over five years and my most vigorous seeds were saved in 2014 and they still germinate like new five years on.
In general I use last years each year but as seeds have been germinated from glacial moraine it is safe to say they can last a long time if kept cool!