No-dig – My Plenty Food Project

Planning a perennial garden

Tackling the brambles - this will be site of my mini-food-forest

I’m inherently quite lazy so much as I am enjoying gardening I want to be able to work towards making my allotment plot as self- as possible. And I, hopefully not too naively, think that my approach can fit with ways of growing that make best use of natural resources, are organic and work with, rather than against nature. So yes I believe that no-dig gardening methods as espoused by Charles Dowding will be just as productive, if not more so, than traditional methods of digging and double-digging. And at the same time I don’t have to exert myself too much other than mulching and compost-making. It will also be kinder to my back.

By the same token, it seems to make sense to grow a wide range of perennials, or self-seeding annuals, and reduce the amount of time (& space) on sowing, pricking out, growing on and planting out. There are rules on my allotment about the number of trees etc that can be planted so whilst I don’t think I’d get away with turning my whole plot over to forest gardening I am planning on using some permaculture ideas on at least a small corner of my plot – once I’ve tackled the brambles which are currently encroaching from the vacant pot next door. More of a shrubbery or hedgerow garden than a fullscale forest garden but we all have to start somewhere! So I’m currently keeping my eye out for bargain perennials and working on my design which I hope to be able to implement over the next year or so – as finances and time allow.

Poire Melon & Blood red Sorrel

Prostrate rosemary

Daubenton Kale – plain & variegated

Currants – white & red plus Rasberry canes

Asparagus Connover’s Collossal

Traditionally a food forest has seven layers starting at the top with the canopy layer of large fruit and nut trees down through a low tree level, shrub level, herbaceous layer, ground cover, rhizosome/root layer and vertical climbers or vines. I think I’ll have to dispense with large trees but am planning on trying for 6 layers. So something along these lines at the moment forming both an edible hedgerow along two sides plus filling in an area close to my shed and surrounding a planned wildlife pond (which may also contain some edibles).

Low tree layer – dwarf or cordon apple & plum trees, szechuan pepper
Shrub layer – Black and red currants, gooseberries, chokeberries (aronia), sea buckthorn (nitrogen fixing)
Herbaceous layer – liquorice, perennial kale, rhubarb, Egyptian walking onions, comfrey, borage, sorrels, herbs eg feverfew, lemon balm, asparagus?
Ground cover – strawberries, ramsons
Root layer – Skirrett? Groundnuts? Jerusalem artichoke?
Vines – hops

So how far have I got? A rough plan I’m playing with on my garden planner, a couple of plants in pots, a few plants on my plot which may need to be relocated, some sown seeds and others waiting for sowing/planting in spring – and a growing wishlist!

Lasagna Gardening

Since I took the decision right from the start to concentrate on no-dig raised beds I have struggled to find (affordable for me!) sources of growing medium. Each of my pallet-collar raised beds is 1.2m x 1m and to get a depth of even 20 cm (8″) requires 240 litres. So even using the cheapest bagged compost I’ve found – Care Compost made from Birmingham’s Green waste by Jack Moody of Wolverhampton and bought from the wonderful Martineau Gardens at £2 per 40 litre bag – it costs £12 per bed. And that doesn’t include the cost of car hire for me to fetch it – or the bus fare to go and collect the car!

I’ve also had half a load of manure from a local horse stables – it was in May and had to share with my neighbour as it was the last they had before the autumn. £35 per load delivered (c. 3 tonnes) so pretty good value for money – but I need more! And I found someone with manure from their horses in a field a few miles away. I had to dig into the mound and bag it up myself but it was free! However the digging and lugging of about 10 bags put my back out and I was incapacitated for a week. And although well-rotted it turned out to be full of grass seed just lurking and awaiting to sprout a couple of weeks after I planted out my leeks in it.

I have been making my own compost with slightly mixed results so far. My first compost bin was not up to scratch and the slats kept breaking so I’ve now dismantled it – and I’ve yet to rebuild one from the pallets I’ve scrounged. Instead I’ve been throwing everything into a large dumpy bag and trying to mix it as best I can. I haven’t achieved the temperatures I would have liked for initial ‘cooking’ of the compost but its got loads of worms in which are doing their stuff. I’ve used some compost from here to top up my early beds after their first harvest before replanting.

Worrying that I wasn’t going to be able to get hold of much more manure from the usual allotment supplier this autumn – and other sources costing much more – and still having lots more beds to get filled before next spring I decided I needed a different approach. On a day out I’d driven past some bagged up (fresh) horse manure by the side of the road at £1 per bag and managed to squeeze 6 in the back of the hire car. So instead of piling it up to leave it to mature or even adding it to my compost bin I’ve split it across 3 of my beds as a layer in what will become lasagna (or lasagne) beds. Starting with a base layer of cardboard or newspaper to suppress perennial weeds I’m now layering up with alternating green and brown layers to strive to get a good carbon:nitrogen mix. So pretty similar to compost-making but doing it right in the bed rather than the compost heap – making lasagna beds is also known as sheet-composting.

There’s a lot of confusion about C:N ratios and greens:browns and what materials are brown and green. I’m not slavishly following any ‘recipe’ but using what I have to hand or can get my hands on and now seems like a good time of year to be doing it. Brown materials include woodchip and autumn leaves whilst fresh manure is considered to be green. Other greens I’ve used so far include my cleared bean and tomato plants – plus a load of nasturtiums and windfall apples I found on the communal compost heap (normally reserved for those things that no-ones to compost in their own heaps!). A few barrow loads of wood chips have so far formed the brown layers – burrowing into the communal pile to find the previous load that was dropped there which was from deciduous trees and included leaves whilst the top layers are from chopped conifers and may be a bit resinous/acidic. I’m using those for my paths.

Greens from bean & tomato plants

Browns and greens

So I’m layering it up and watering each layer well and to the beds above I’ve since added a layer of semi-composted material from my compost bin. I’ve covered them over with black polythene to see if it will ‘cook’ the mix and bump-start the breakdown whilst there’s still some warmth in the air. Although I’m slightly concerned about cooking the many worms I introduced from the compost! I assume they’ll have the sense to move to cooler parts of the bed if it warms up too much 😉

As I get hold of more material I’ll keep layering up more beds and letting nature and the winter weather do its stuff. When it gets to spring my plan is to top off with a layer of brought in compost for seed sowing or adding to planting holes for plants. Now my main task is to go on the hunt for as much organic material as I can source for free – I’ve already got friends and neighbours giving me their last lawn mowings and saving me their swept up leaves. And the money I save on buying in tonnes of compost I can spend on more seeds and plants…..:-)

Oh dear – it’s been a while……

So much for my good intentions to write regular blog posts about my allotment adventures over the summer! It’s not that I haven’t written anything but its been in my personal journal and not for public consumption – apart from the occasional tweet. So for the record and to catch up I’ll try and summarise what’s happened over my first 6 months on my plot.

April –

Bokashi bin

New compost bin

Seeds

Windowsill seedlings

Mulching weeds

Germination

1st pallet collar raised beds

Frustrating first month as waited for ground to dry out, weather to warm up, seedlings to germinate and to find a source of ‘cheap’ manure/compost. But the seeds did germinate and I had them all over the house on window ledges and in my shed. Assiduously labelled everything and enjoyed watching them grow. But quite a few got bit too leggy and spindly before conditions were good enough and I had some beds set up to plant them out. Constantly on search for more cardboard as mulch as I gradually used up all of my stores from the house move. Failed to stick to my plan – carefully drawn up in my garden planner.

Positives – found good source of pallet collars for raised beds. Also tracked down Care Compost for £2 per bag and eventually got hold of the manure man. And most seeds did OK.

Negatives – V disappointed with cheap(!) compost bin I had bought – thought it wouldn’t last (I was right!)

May –

1st rustic bean frame

Chitting oca

Field beans

Scorzonera?

Loading manure into bed

Lovely stuff!

Tractor delivery

1st bed planted – gooseberries, strawberries with wool fleece protection

Mad rush to get everything planted out and established before my trip to Canada at end of month. Financially strapped so couldn’t afford to splash out on enough compost etc so got fewer beds planted up than planned but manure man had eventually put in an appearance – delivery by tractor! Made a start with adding woodchip to paths between beds – with son’s help. First bed planted with free strawberry plants and gooseberry bushes from a Handsworth allotment by way of Gumtree. Constructed some bean wigwams for runners and french beans. Field beans planted out too.

Positives – definite signs of progress and v pleased to actually see some plants in the ground.

Negatives – shortage of compost/money! Huge storms at end of month put paid to some plans before holiday.

June =

First half I was in Seattle/Vancouver whilst kids looked after my plot! Did do a bit of horticultural tourism – a visit to University of British Columbia Farm for the Farmer’s Market and tour of their sustainable farm which was great. Worthy of a whole blog itself but a few pics will have to suffice.

UBC Farmers Market

UBC Farm Tour

Came home mid-month into a heatwave which was to continue for next couple of months or more. Son had done watering and most seedlings had survived but there were a few casualties – notably courgettes and squash which had disappeared completely. A & R had also gone ahead and used pallets I’d left to build a compost bin – not quite the design – or the position – I’d anticipated but I appreciated the gesture 🙂 Its proved useful since for several things but not yet making compost!

I’d missed the allotment auction but my neighbour T had bid on my behalf and I discovered I was now the proud owner of an 8×8 shed and a 20ft long polytunnel:-)

Field Beans

Shed

Polytunnel

Positives – great holiday! Excited by shed & polytunnel

Negatives – loss of courgettes & squash etc. Weeds! Sleepless nights trying to work out how to move shed and polytunnel.

July –

Manure with worms

Leeks

More beans

Carrots

Velvet Queen – a stunner

Field Beans

1sr French beans – Cosse violette

Beetroot

Onions – Red Baron

Potatoes in woodchip

Well this is when I really started to see results! Real actual harvests! From tiny seeds germinating on my windowsill back in the cold of spring to harvesting radish, onions, potatoes, carrots and beans in the heat of summer. This felt like success. But was still struggling to get my replanted courgettes & squash going and was on to my third unsuccessful sowing of lettuce. And there were some other casualties too – achocha, brassicas looking very peaky and most of my raspberry canes had all succumbed to heat or insects.

Positives – harvests and my beautiful Velvet Queen sunflowers

Negatives – hours of watering, crop losses and still those sleepless nights working out the logistics of moving shed & polytunnel!

August –

Aidan & me

Propping upthe beans – again!

Tree spinach

Bergamot

Digging trench for the polytunnel

Bee friendly sunflower

Tackling the brambles – this will be site of my mini-food-forest

A little helping hand with clearing brambles

Fermenting purple french beans

Chinese Gooseberry in the garden

Summer gloriousness of Velvet Queen

Chinese gooseberry

The heatwave continued unabated and lots of time still spent on watering. Some things still looked peaky – brassicas very motheaten (probably literally!) but decided not to uproot in the hope they’d perk up and I hadn’t got any plants to replace them with anyway! Still very little progress with the courgettes/squash and sweetcorn very slow. But lots of purple french beans (Cosse Violette) so had a go at fermenting some with OK results even if they lost their colour.

Having acquired blackcurrants from my neighbour’s plot in July this month I found plums & damsons on trees at the margin of our site – and apples in the communal ‘orchard’ – they found their way into crumbles and gin. And sheltering from a sudden deluge in one of my neighbours many structures I made good use of my time and helped myself to a couple of bags of her blackberries (with permission of course!) Good size but flavour not so good as wild brambles.

Had a helping hand from son and we made an impact on tackling a lot of weeds and brambles at top of plot and covered over to prevent further growth. Plan to put shed and move compost bin up here. After some rain we also managed to dig out the polytunnel I’d bought and my sister then helped dig out a couple of trenches around the space where it was going to go on my plot.

Positives: Clearing weeds, harvesting, and general progress

Negatives: Clearing weeds and sleepless nights thinking about the polytunnel!

September –

Month started very well with the moving of the polytunnel:

And then there was even some planting in the polytunnel:

But then we had the first of the named UK storms – Storm Ali – and this was the result:

Oh dear! I hadn’t completed the job of digging in the polythene cover – but it seemed sturdy enough and had been weighted down either side so I couldn’t imagine it moving very far. But the day I went to tackle the digging in ahead of impending storm Bronagh I walked down the path and suddenly realised I couldn’t see it behind my neighbours’ runner beans as I approached. It simply wasn’t there – and at first glance it wasn’t anywhere in sight at all. It was only after I’d walked up to the top of my plot that I spotted in in the distance having come to rest against someone’s compost bin right up against the boundary trees. I managed to get the cover off – surprisingly appearing to be in one piece with only a couple of small tears in the ventilation mesh – and stashed away. The frame appeared pretty mangled on first view but at the time of writing I have a plan to salvage it if possible with the help of Dave on my neighbouring plot. So all may not be lost just yet!

September wasn’t completely a failure – I discovered that where allotment growing is concerned patience really is a virtue! I finally harvested my first courgettes, lettuce, broccoli and kale. But can’t claim the tromboncino – that was from Kings Norton Farmers’ Market.

Tromboncino – from farmer’s market

Tree spinach next to oca

Mange tout with flowers

Morton’s Secret Lettuce Mix

Pink tresses on sweetcorn

Mizuna seedlings

Yellow courgettes

First courgette 🙂

And the month – and my first six months of being allotmenteer ended with a real treat. No! – not my Allotment Association AGM at which my election as treasurer at an earlier EGM was confirmed 😉 But a trip with my sister to the Malvern Autumn Show – an absolute delight.