Tag Archives: No-dig

Late Autumn happenings on the plot

Hard to believe we’re into November already! Where does the time go?  But even though the days are shortening and the temperatures dropping I’ve been finding lots of opportunities to visit my allotment plot and have been reaping the rewards of earlier plantings whilst getting lots of prep done for next year.

I’m still harvesting lettuce – Morton’s Secret Mix from Real Seeds IMG_20181020_174614– taking a few leaves at a time from each plant.  Throughout the summer I’d had no success at all despite several sowings but by September my last sowing had germinated and despite a slow start finally produced a decent crop and the plants are still going strong. This mix includes Reds, greens, brights, darks, splashes, blushes, crisps, butters, leafs, heads, and tongues. The mix is really attractive in a salad and all of them are tasty.I’m harvesting a bag full of leaves about once a week. Surprisingly they last really well in the fridge – much better than a commercial bag of salad despite them probably being in a protective atmosphere (at least until the bag is opened!).

I’ve been able to supplement this late summer crop with oriental greens – particularly img_20181028_174508_829mizuna and with some mustard greens too.  I was intending to make some successional sowings but haven’t gotten around to it (yet!) But if the mizuna keeps producing as well as it is at the moment maybe it’ll keep me going all winter….

I’d originally planted it in a bed in the polytunnel but once that had blown away I just put a fleece over it.  I can’t quite believe that a thin fleece can do much to stop freezing temps – I’d need one more than a few microns thick! – but it will keep off pests including the local pigeons. And the plants are supposed to be frost hardy anyway.

The beans and tomatoes are almost a distant memoryimg_20181028_174631_940 now although I do still have some from my garden ripening on the kitchen windowsill. I’m not a huge fan of chutneys (have to confess I prefer Branston pickle) so will wait for them to ripen gradually. I do fry some of them green and have with a breakfast fry-up.

Although not a huge radish lover I’m hoping to be converted by different varieties, especially not I’ve discovered that cooked in a stir fry they img_20181103_180338_974actually taste quite pleasant.  So I’ve tried some Spanish black radish

I’ve not had a huge success with my brassicas although some are now coming on.  Despite being netted they have suffered some insect damage and now seem to have a whitefly infestation – do they not get killed by the cold?

I’ve had a couple of small broccoli spears and one slightly manky cauliflower. But the Cavolo Nero is looking good and I’ve started harvesting it by taking a few leaves each week.  There are a few cabbages which are starting to heart up and I even discovered some tiny sprouts starting to form – maybe they’ll be ready for Christmas? 😉

It was Halloween this week and I had managed to grow one pumpkin!  I’d picked it a couple of weeks ago whilst still green and had hoped it would ripen and go orange by 31st but it was still mainly green. I did do a very last carving to put outside for trick and treaters.

But my daughter’s creative skills put my feeble efforts to shame – and will provide a much longer lasting autumnal decoration.

Autunmnal decorated patty pan squash
Autumnal decorated patty pan squash

I’ve planted garlic and elephant garlic together with onions to see how they overwinter. And also field beans as a green manure on a couple of beds. Not too worried about the cold but am concerned about how wet it might be given that my plot was very sodden when I first took it on. I’m hoping that using raised beds will keep them out of the worst of the floods.

But I am disappointed about my leeks img_20181103_134003which have been infected by the dreaded allium leaf miner. The green leaves showed no signs so I was unaware of it until I harvested a couple of stems last week.  So I’ve now harvested them all and disposed of any infected material. And so instead of a crop that I hope would keep me going over winter, I’ve been left with a few usable remnants that might just be enough to make me cup-of-soup!  And of course, I am also a tad worried in case the bugs get onto my young garlic or onions. I’d planted elephant garlic in a gap in the leek bed but following the discovery of the ‘miners’ thought I should move them before they got too established.  But furtling around in the soil to find them as they don’t have any green growth yet I was surprised to discover how much root growth they had put on. I didn’t feel I wanted to disturb them as they were doing well so decided to take a chance on leaving them in situ and will cover them with mesh to prevent any later infestations.

So all in all a bit of a mixed bag on the production side but I am pleased with the progress I’ve made on prep for next year already.  I’ve set up several more raised beds using the lasagna bed methodology. Layers have included cardboard, horse manure, semi-rotted compost, green and kitchen waste and leaves.  I’ll top up with a layer of compost when I’m ready to plant them.  I’ve sown a couple with a green manure mix and another with field beans which I’ll possibly chop as a green manure but may be tempted to leave to produce a crop.

And I’ve planted a few perennials – currant and gooseberry bushes, Daubenton’s Kale and asparagus and moved the strawberry bed.  So a productive month in many respects.

Will be concentrating now on prep for my first full gardening season in 2019; getting my shed built and hopefully salvage the polytunnel.  And sorting out my already large seed collection and filling the gaps from the ever-growing stash of catalogues piling up by my desk.

 

 

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.img_20180731_172157

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…..:-)