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2010-04-28T07:33:00.001-07:00

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April allotment watering and germinating

2010-04-26T06:26:00.001-07:00

Yes, we’re watering already! I can’t believe, given how wet it was in March, how dry it’s been in April.

At home, in the greenhouse, we have peppers (courtesy of Len who germinated the seed and gave us the seedlings) and tomatoes.

Things that have come good in the past couple of days on the allotment:

• the shallots have decided to sprout, after I’d given up on them entirely
• the first earlies are popping out of their earthy mounds like mad things (or possibly like zombie vegetables resurrecting themselves, a scary image I really wish I hadn’t thought of, but it’s too late now, it’s in my head!)
• radishes – ready to harvest already!
• Parsnips – germinating in their own good time, but appearing (very slowly) on either side of the radishes.

What’s not so great …

• the beetroot seedlings, which are looking a bit spindly to be honest
• the carrots – doing nothing at all, we really struggle to get carrot seed to germinate on 201.

And our purple-sprouting broccoli has started to flower – a bit sad, as it makes the plant bitter and tough and inedible, but it looks pretty!

Allotment - creating our own compost Dalek

2010-04-22T10:18:00.000-07:00

The 'old' bin, then the pit dug for the new bin with gravel etc in the bottom (and a layer of wood ash from our bonfires as we didn't have charcoal) and then the new bin in place with its holes drilled in the lid but without its bubble-wrap insulation.

Now we'll see what happens with the kitchen waste we put in it ...

Thanks Andy for all the tips.

How to Compost Your Kitchen Waste All Year Round (Part Two)

2010-04-21T05:31:00.000-07:00

In my previous post last week I explained how to modify a Dalek compost bin so that it can be used to make compost quickly and all year round. In my final post this week I will be revealing how to use the modified Dalek and how to get the best results from it. I am delighted to hear that allotment 201 is giving it a try.

Having filled the Dalek with soil or old compost up to the start of the insulated portion, kitchen waste materials can now be added. It is ok to include all types of fruit and veg waste including veg peelings, apple cores, banana skins, orange peel, tea bags, coffee grinds, egg shells etc. But because the bin is not rat proof, I wouldn’t put any meat, fish or cooked food in there. The other thing to avoid is paper or cardboard which can matt together forming a heavy mush which will clog up the bin and end up in a smelly mess.

The next thing to do is to prepare the waste materials. I usually wait until there is at least 2 Kg of waste before adding it to the Dalek. There are 4 things to consider – moisture, texture, nitrogen content and size. The fruit and veg waste has a very high moisture and relatively high nitrogen content so it will need to be balanced with a dryer material with a relatively high carbon content – I often use straw or hay since I can get them cheaply and they also have a hollow structure which will help trap beneficial air. Sawdust can also be used and I have even experimented with wood based cat litter (unused of course!). If you have pets such as chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs etc, then the nest clearings and droppings are excellent for this too. The veg waste is also soft and mushy so the open texture and coarse nature of the straw, hay or sawdust will help to keep the material open and allow in air. Usually a few large handfuls of the dry material are sufficient to soak up the moisture when added to a couple of Kg of waste. The kitchen waste will also need chopping up so I put it in one of those floppy builders tubs, add the dry material then use a spade to mix and chop the whole lot up in one go. A spade full of soil or old compost will help introduce beneficial composting organisms into the mixture. A light sprinkling of the QR activator solution can also be added to the tub but you can add it into the bin before adding the waste (as per the usual QR method) if you wish. I should also mention that the occasional sprinkling of lime should be added to the tub – this reduces the acidity and worms also use it to help them digest their food

The waste mixture can now be added to the Dalek making sure that it sits in a fairly even layer on the top of the material in the bin. To retain the heat put a layer or two of Hessian sacking over the compost or some straw stuffed inside an old onion sack makes an ideal duvet. Finally put the lid on the Dalek and the rainproof cover on as explained in last weeks post (part one). Adding the waste to the bin usually takes no longer than 10 minutes and is time well spent.

The first addition of material, depending on the outside air temperature, will usually take a few days to get going and heat up. Subsequent regular additions will heat up more quickly. The heat will die down after another few days so weekly additions will keep the ball rolling. At this time of year the temperature in the bin can get up to about 40C without a problem, in midsummer expect temperature up to 65C and in winter up to 30C. Of course there are many factors which will influence the temperature including thickness and type of insulation, amount of material, nitrogen content, outside temperature and weather conditions. To get more heat you can apply thicker insulation, more waste or increase the nitrogen content (the bacteria thrive on this and produce the heat through their high metabolic activity) by adding urine, nettles or manure (chicken poo is excellent!). Wind-chill and rain are worst enemies for cooling the heap down so positioning the bin in a sheltered position can be beneficial.

'The resulting compost will be like vermicompost from a worm bin'

Keep adding the waste on a regular basis and you will notice that it does not fill up - the material sinks down leaving an air gap around the edge allowing natural ventilation by convection to the compost. I think this is one of the clever things about the Dalek and my main reason for liking them.

After about 6 weeks or so, begin removing the soil or old compost from the bottom of the bin. You will probably be able to tunnel your way in which will improve ventilation to the compost. It is important to remove material from the whole of the base area if possible to avoid compaction which can lead to airless conditions. (This is the drawback of the Dalek in that they don’t have sufficient access to the compost around the full perimeter of the base) Over the next month or two, with regular additions of waste and regular removal of material from the base the finished compost will start to emerge.

Over a few months the populations of organisms will increase. In particular, brandling or tiger worms will thrive and form large writhing masses! The resulting compost will be like vermicompost from a worm bin and will be a bit sticky and jelly-like, but excellent stuff nonetheless and ideal for top dressing plants, giving them a real boost. Mice will probably find a home in the bin too, they also help by tunnelling through the compost making useful airways to aerate the compost.

Leaving the bin for a few weeks while you go on holiday is not a problem and I have often had a pleasant surprise when returning to find gorgeous dark compost! Once you start to harvest the compost you should be able to continue doing so on a regular basis.

Over the last 2.5 years, I have been developing a compost bin that has all the advantages of the modified Dalek with some further improvements including rat proofing, full access to the compost around its base and a flat pack design. Details and availability will be posted on my website (www.qrcompostingsolutions.co.uk) soon.

I have thoroughly enjoyed writing my posts and answering questions/comments from readers. I do hope that I get invited again to do some more posts in the future but in the meantime please feel free to leave any questions/comments at this post or on my website and I will answer them as soon as possible.

Happy Composting!

Andy

Planting potatoes and brassicas

2010-04-19T08:46:00.000-07:00

And here it is – the brassica cage in its new location!

We’ve been given some wonder-stuff, a special secret recipe concocted by one of our allotment stalwarts, which we sprinkle on the ground and rake in about a fortnight before planting our brassicas, so we’re looking forward to bumper crops this year. We also saw the first cabbage whites of the season as we were moving the cage, so it’s not a moment too soon to get the cage to its new home. And we managed it without a single curse or argument.

We’ve also started work on a compost bin Dalek, according to Andy’s instructions, so I shall be posting the first photos of that in a few day’s time, but before any of that …

Our maincrop potatoes have been planted! We managed to get them all in the ground over the weekend, with a layer of comfrey under them to give them a good start, and so we’re very pleased with ourselves about that – although I bet you our comfrey roots and we end up digging that out of the allotment for years too – we definitely didn’t wilt it enough before putting it in the bottom of the trenches.

Plotting and planning on the plot

2010-04-18T00:19:00.000-07:00

Hurrah! 201 has new bunting!

And what are we celebrating? Nothing, yet, although the tops of the first earlies have just peeked through the soil so we certainly hope to be celebrating potatoes soon. What we intend to celebrate is the moving of the brassica cage, seen at the bottom left of this photo. Hopefully, when I next post, it will magically appear at top left! We need to move it for crop rotation purposes, so that we don't end up with club root in our brassicas.

However, for that magic to happen, not a little blood, sweat and tears has to happen first. We have to dig it out where it’s bedded in, and then one of us stands one side of the fence, one the other, and we ‘walk’ it up the allotment to its new home. Why do we have to walk it over the fence, which is obviously a complicating factor?

Um, because my wonderful new triumphal arch means we can’t carry it up the path … and we've got crops on both sides of the path that can't be walked on so we can't take it either side of the arch either.

Sigh.

Bit of a planning failure there, eh?

How to Compost Your Kitchen Waste All Year Round (Part One)

2010-04-14T07:15:00.000-07:00

We have talked about making compost with the plant waste materials that come from our gardens – but what about the continuous stream of waste that comes from our kitchens all year round? In the warmer months of the year we can compost this waste with the grass clippings, hedge clippings and other garden debris that is available but during the colder months this type of heap will not heat up and it will just sit there and pile up. If not dealt with properly it can end up as a putrefying slimy mass and will probably attract rats.

The easiest solution is to use one of those plastic conical shaped compost bins, otherwise known as Daleks, which are very common place these days and are available at a discounted price from most councils. They can be easily adapted to convert kitchen waste to compost all year round.

If your soil is not free draining, it is best to dig a small pit about 4” (10cm) deep, slightly larger than the base area of the Dalek and fill it with gravel or hardcore. This will provide excellent drainage and allow excess moisture to seep away. Next, place a circle of housebricks on top of the gravel or ground ensuring that they form a level surface on which the Dalek can be safely rested. Make sure there are air gaps of at least 1” (2.5cm) between the bricks to allow air to get to the bottom of the heap. Drill some 8mm diameter holes around the rim of the lid – this will allow air to vent up through the bin and out of the lid.

Miss Bruce always used to build her compost heaps with a thin layer of charcoal in the bottom of her compost heaps. I think this is an excellent idea and one that I always follow because charcoal can absorb bad smells (charcoal is used in odoreaters!). It has also been proven that ‘biochar’ can aid soil fertility.

For all year round composting, the heat needs to be retained within the Dalek by adding a thick layer of insulation material around the upper part of the bin. This is a case of what you can get your hands on but it needs to be light, water proof and a good insulator. Several layers of old bubblewrap wrapped around the bin (above the hatch so access can be maintained to remove finished compost) to a depth of at least 4” is ideal. Secure the bubblewrap in place with some cloth ‘Gaffa’ tape (Duck tape) and/or stretch a couple of bungee cords around it. It took about 20 minutes to convert my Dalek and I admit it doesn’t look very pretty but the most important thing is that it will work and make good compost.

Add some old compost or soil into the bottom of the Dalek bringing the level up to a height which is above the top of the hatch so that when you add your kitchen waste materials they are within the insulated portion of the bin.

Make sure that rainwater can’t run down between the insulation and the bin by placing a large rainproof cover on top of the Dalek lid. Corrugated sheeting held down with bricks is good for the job.

In next weeks post I will explain the how and why of preparing the kitchen waste materials and adding them to the modified Dalek.

Allotment Raised beds in April

2010-04-13T05:50:00.000-07:00

How's this for productivity?

Okay, I'll be honest. There are two beds with strawberries in, and one that's a permanent asparagus bed. So only two of these beds are planted up with seeds - the rest have just been covered to warm the soil. Looks good though, doesn't it?

Allotment Triumphal Arch

2010-04-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

Isn’t it lovely?

As to why it’s triumphal – the two bits of arch that aren’t arching (if you see what I mean) were just about the first things we took to 201 seventeen months ago! And today, while I was minuting an allotment committee meeting, Himself installed the arch and made the archy bits that go over the top. So possibly it should be a triumphant arch rather than a triumphal one ...

On one side I’m going to plant purple/black Ipomeas and on the other, Achocha: a sort of climbing vine from South America that produces small, spiky cucumber-like fruits!

Allotment plots, pots and publicity

2010-04-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

A lot of our plots are being divided in two, so that we can double the number of people getting to grow their own. It’s very exciting and involves lots of red and white striped tape being put up where the plots are halved – which makes me think of crime scenes … And we are getting a lot of younger allotment-holders, as you can see!

A question about pots? Has anybody tried these devices that make plant pots out of old newspapers? We have a problem every year with not having enough pots for our spring germination programme, but then for the rest of the year we have towers of empty pots that fall on us whenever we open the shed door. Degradable pots are a nice idea but pretty damn expensive if you use several hundred every year, as we do … so what do you do when you’re germinating vegetable seeds?

And publicity – we are very excited to have been mentioned in Kitchen Garden magazine this month!

Looking After Your Compost Heap

2010-04-07T06:40:00.000-07:00

Composting takes place all around us, not just in a compost heap. From the moment a piece of fruit or veg is cut open and subjected to the air, bacteria and fungi will begin their work of colonising and digesting it.

In the soil there are many different types of organisms each with their own role to play in turning animal and vegetative waste into humus. Humus is the debris, consisting of the bodily remains of the organisms and bodily waste materials, that is left after the organisms have had a field day digesting the food, the excrement created and each other. Humus is wonderful food for plants, containing minerals and nutrients they need for healthy life and growth. Certain organisms that live in the soil, such as slugs, woodlice and millipedes, will eat and shred materials making it easier and accessible for smaller organisms such as bacteria and fungi to enter. Larger organisms such as worms, nematodes and protozoa, eat the bacteria and fungi digesting and releasing the nutrients tied up within them. Larger animals such as arthropods like centipedes and spiders will prey on the smaller organisms and so the vicious circle of life within the soil processes biodegradable waste into plant food.

The compost heap is really a refined version of what goes on in the soil. By creating the correct environmental and dietary conditions in the compost heap we can speed up the decomposition process and make the heap work efficiently for us. There are four main requirements for the QR heap to work successfully:

• Air is required by the beneficial aerobic organisms such as bacteria which need to breathe. Aerobic bacteria can produce antibiotics which kill off bad bacteria. Make sure your bin has good ventilation around the base and sides to allow air to reach the heap.
• Moisture is required by bacteria and protozoa to take up food and release waste materials - it also allows them to move around in search of food. Worms love moist conditions, if it is too dry they move away. Most ‘green’ materials, such as grass clippings or waste from the kitchen, usually have sufficient moisture in them. ‘Brown’ materials such as hay or straw will require soaking overnight, as explained in my previous post. Allowing too much moisture into the heap can halt the hot composting process so good rainproof shelter, such as corrugated sheeting over the top of the heap is essential. The shelter will also prevent the heap drying out through evaporation.
• Good drainage is necessary to allow excess moisture to drain away otherwise this will build up in the base of the heap and cause airless conditions leading to bad smells and putrefaction. If at all possible, build your heap on well drained soil. If not then incorporate at least a 3” (7.5cm) layer of rubble or rough material under the base.
• Retaining the moist warm heat created in the heap will allow the QR activator to permeate through the pile and will also create the right condition for the types of bacteria that work at higher temperatures which can rapidly break down waste materials. A layer of hessian sacking is ideal because it retains the heat but also allows the heap to breathe.

A layer of hessian sacking helps retain the moist warm heat

If you look after your compost heap it will seldom go wrong and you will learn how to make good compost. Failure is usually the result of overlooking one of the four essential requirements listed above. Understanding what goes on in the heap is the key to success and it will all come naturally after building a few heaps.

April Allotment planting

2010-04-06T04:54:00.000-07:00

The Easter weekend was all about peas. First, the sweet peas went in around their bean-wam. These are a mixture of saved seed, F1 hybrids (some kind of charity seed that helps fund support for returning soldiers that I got talked into buying in the allotment shop) and the last of the year before’s cottage garden highly-scented pastel seed. Should at least make for an interesting display.

The bean-wam is in the middle of the herb bed - last year it ended up being used for borlotti beans because we simply ran out of usable soil on 201. We had nearly a quarter of the allotment unused but as it hadn't been dug for years, there was little point trying to plant it until we'd dug and fed it. This year the borlottis are going where we had potatoes last year, the potatoes are breaking up the ground that wasn't used at all in 2009, and the bean-wam will host the sweet peas this year and next year maybe I'll have a proper herb planting in there. Maybe.

Then it was real peas. 320 of them. There are both Meteor and Feltham First but in this picture you can only seethe back lot (Meteor) and the front row, still to be planted, are entirely are Feltham First. They are also the result of successional sowings – the ones you can see at the left-hand end of the picture went in two weeks before the ones that you can't see, at the far right. We still have all our maincrop peas to sow yet, but they go directly into the ground.

Our early peas get sown in toilet roll inners because of mice, but the maincrops don’t seem to suffer so much – probably because there is so much else for them to be nibbling on that a few peas aren’t as enticing as they are earlier in the year when there’s no variety to the rodent diet.

The radishes are up (the parsnips aren’t, not worried yet though) and the first of the beetroot are up too. All in all it’s looking properly springlike on 201 at last!

Dodging weather on the allotment

2010-04-02T06:47:00.000-07:00

This week we've had:

Frost
Hail
Torrential rain leading to localised flooding - mainly where my beans should be going
Gales
Brilliant sunshine.

I've tried to get up to the plot whenever the weather has been 'clement' whatever that means, and I've been rewarded with some gorgeous moments when the sun has emerged and the wallflowers have delivered a small amount of fragrance on the still chilly air.

I'm picking bushels (or at least bagfulls) of purple-sprouting broccoli and looking enviously at neighbours who still have leeks and cabbages. This week we had the last of our kale too and I made it into Stamppot a Dutch recipe that is hearty and easy

Kale Stamppot

500 grams potatoes
200 grams kale, washed and de-stemmed, then chopped
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper
milk and butter

Wash and peel the potatoes, quarter them and put them in a really big saucepan, then lay the chopped kale and bay leaf on top. Put water in the pan until it just reaches the top of the potatoes and add a little salt.

Bring to the boil and then simmer gently for twenty minutes or so until the potatoes are just tender. Drain into a colander and let sit for about five minutes. Remove bay leaf.

Mash with some milk and butter and lots of pepper and serve with strongly flavoured sausages and onion gravy.

Delicious!

From Plant Waste to Plant Loving Compost in as Little as Four Weeks

2010-03-31T04:26:00.000-07:00

Here's the third instalment of wisdom from compost expert Andy Davenport who's also available to answer your compost questions - just post them in comments and he'll respond!

Spring is probably the best time of year for making compost. After the long winter rest, nature begins to wake up; the sap starts to rise, bulbs throw up their shoots, seeds germinate everywhere and life returns to the garden. The fresh leafy spring growth is full of the vitality, energy and nutrients that plants have been slowly storing up over winter and is especially good at kick starting the compost heap. The first batches of weeds and grass clippings are full of life and vigour and contain high amounts of simple sugars and nutrients which are the perfect food for the bacteria in the compost heap. They soon get to work quickly breaking it down and their frenetic feeding, breathing and rapid reproduction soon gets the temperature up in the compost heap.

Compost heaps that were built last autumn will have come to a standstill over winter. These can be re-energised and finished off by taking the compost heap down to about half its height and rebuilding the top half of the heap, alternating layers of fresh green materials, such as grass clippings and weeds, with the old compost. It is very important that these materials are fresh otherwise they won’t raise the heat and will have little impact. Nettles are particularly good because they are full of iron and other minerals - they also make an excellent activator and can generate high temperatures in the heap. The layers should be no more than 4” (10cm) deep and should be built by placing handfuls of material working from the outside towards the centre of the heap. Sprinkle QR activator on the heap prior to the addition of each layer and remember to place some hessian sacking or old carpet on top of the rebuilt heap to retain the precious heat. If the bin isn’t fitted with a lid, place some rainproof sheeting over the heap to keep out the rain. A heap rebuilt in this way will make excellent compost in about 4 to 6 weeks.

Alternate layers of fresh green materials, such as grass clippings and weeds, with the old compost

All those dry winter stems and clearings from the borders can be used to build a new heap but they need some preparation first. They need to be shredded or broken up into small pieces which can easily be done by chopping them with a spade in one of those floppy plastic buckets. If they are dry then give them a good soaking overnight. Rainwater with some soil added, urine or rain water mixed with some well rotted manure are all good for the job and will also add valuable minerals, nutrients and enzymes to the heap which will assist in the breakdown of tough materials . After soaking, leave them to drain off for a couple of hours so that they are not too wet. They can then be used to build into layers of the heap alternated with layers of fresh greens. Add the QR activator, heat retention and shelter as explained earlier. A heap built like this in the spring can make great compost in about 6 to 8 weeks. As the seasons progress the vitality and nutrients in the plant materials gradually reduces and so the time to ripen slowly increases, despite warmer summer temperatures. The summer compost heap usually takes about 8 to 12 weeks to reach maturity and an autumn heap about 12 to 16 weeks. However these timings are still very fast compared to other methods - it is no wonder that Miss Bruce called her system the ‘Quick Return’ method.

Allotment haul 29 March

2010-03-29T08:39:00.000-07:00

Dodged the showers to grab this haul. Now I can't decide between purple-sprouting broccoli in cheese sauce, or broccoli stir-fry. Either way it's going to be delicious!

Germination and soil temperature

2010-03-26T05:49:00.000-07:00

This is 201 today. Looks okay, doesn’t it? Himself’s bean frame looks very perky, I think.

I’ve just popped up to the plot in my lunch break and been deeply disappointed. I wasn’t expecting any parsnip seed to have germinated, nor any carrots or beetroot (well, maybe I was a bit hopeful on the carrot and beetroot front) but I was genuinely pretty confident that the radishes would be on their way. They are not. All these seeds are going into raised beds, which have been covered by glass for a week or ten days before planting, to get the soil warmed up a bit. And maybe six days is too soon for even radish, but I shall be really peeved if the first of them isn’t up by the end of the weekend!

By and large, it’s said to be better to sow a little bit late than a little bit early because if the soil temperature is too low for the seeds you’re sowing it will rot before it germinates.

For the first time I can remember, I’ve had seeds rot in the greenhouse, and it seems I am not alone, Gill at My Tiny Plot has had exactly the same problem. So fingers crossed that my outdoor sowings will work better than my greenhouse ones.

Hot Composting - without turning the heap!

2010-03-24T03:07:00.000-07:00

Another article from Andy Davenport on the joys and secrets of Quick Return Composting

There are many different methods of composting but generally they can be divided into two main types – hot composting and cold composting.

Cold composting is very popular because it doesn’t take much work or preparation of materials before they are added to the heap and is quite a relaxed approach, the drawback is that the results can be a bit hit or miss and it can take a quite a while – up to a couple of years which is obviously a long time to wait. This can also mean having lots of compost heaps everywhere or compost bins tied up for long periods whilst waiting for compost to mature.

The great thing about hot composting is that it can bring results much more quickly – in a matter of weeks or months rather than years! The catch is that with most hot composting techniques they usually require the arduous task of turning the heap in order to get sufficient aeration to the organisms to enable thorough breakdown of the waste materials. Of course, you could go out and spend a lot of money on a compost tumbler – but these have the drawback that they do not allow beneficial creatures or organisms to enter the heap once temperatures have dropped. If they are in the compost bin when it’s hot, where temperatures can reach up to 70oC, then they will be killed off. When the Quick Return (QR) method was invented by Maye E Bruce back in the 1930’s, she discovered that the herbal activator that the method uses actually removes the requirement to turn the compost. This can save a dramatic amount of work given that a compost heap may normally have to be turned at least 3 times to get good compost. For large heaps with up to a tonne of material that’s a lot of work! It also saves on having extra enclosures or space available to turn the compost into.

The QR method does take a little extra care and time to construct but this does not increase the build time by a massive amount. The heap has to be built in layers of alternating materials, greens alternated with browns, coarse alternated with soft etc. These layers should be built quite firmly with the material placed in by hand, working around the bin from the outside towards the centre. The QR herbal activator solution is sprinkled into the heap (a bit like putting vinegar on your chips!) prior to the addition of each layer. A careful and gentle treading after a few layers allows the activator to permeate through the waste material, spreading through the pile with the moist warm heat created when the bacteria start to breakdown nitrogen. Keeping the heap covered with some sacking or old carpet will keep this valuable heat within the compost. A rainproof lid or sheet on top of the bin is also essential or rain may seep in which will cause cooling off and will mean rebuilding the heap. ‘It is after all just common sense’ as Miss Bruce used to say!

A careful and gentle treading after a few layers allows the activator to permeate through the waste material

Allotment raised beds in March

2010-03-22T07:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, while our neighbours got on with their own spring cleaning (see how the graffiti has disappeared from this window?) we spent three hours getting raised beds ready for planting, or actually planting them.

While Himself planted the first row of second earlies, I lifted the glass from one raised bed, in which we’d put sand and compost a couple of weeks ago, and planted two rows of parsnips and one row of radish. The idea is that the radish are all used up long before they can get in the way of the parsnips. The bed had got really dry with the glass over it, so I watered the mix well, then laid the seed rows on the damp surface, and sieved well-aged compost over the top. I prefer this method to drills or holes for parsnip seed, which doesn’t like to be too cold or too deeply planted. It means the seed has ‘wet feet and a dry head’ because it goes onto damp soil but is covered by warm dry matter which should speed germination. Everybody knows that parsnips are fussy germinators, but usually (fingers crossed) I’m pretty lucky with my seed.

The glass went back over the top, because our last frost date in 2009 was 29th March, so our glass stays on tender crops until at least then!

Himself moved on to putting up pea supports while I dug manure into two raised beds that will hold baby leeks, when they are ready, and one for a courgette or pumpkin (haven’t decided yet) and dug over a sandier bed for beetroots and carrots and sowed the first two rows of each – Early Nantes 2 carrots and Chioggia beetroot – I’ll make successional sowings every two weeks or so. That bed also has a glass cover.

I picked an entire bag of purple sprouting broccoli – enough for three meals for two hungry adults at least, and once that was done we suddenly realised we were so exhausted we could barely crawl home!

Allotment planting season

2010-03-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

Our neighbours have been busy planting out potatoes and carrots and you name it … it’s always lovely to see the rows of seed, carefully inspected on a daily basis to check if ‘anything’s coming up’ and the excitement – especially in new allotment holders – when something actually does.

There’s been an awful lot of digging going on this week, as the weather has been really suitable for the first time in about a fortnight, so just about everybody at our end of the site has been turning over the soil, which makes the starlings very happy indeed. Greenhouses have gone from empty to full in a single weekend too, which is always a good sign. We have sweet peas and peas, tomatoes, broccoli, leeks, dahlias and herbs underway in ours.

But this bed is a bit grim to my eyes. I’m all in favour of raised beds but this on looks like a coffin to me … kiss of death to anything planted in it, perhaps?

Getting the Most from Your Compost Heap

2010-03-17T07:58:00.000-07:00

You may remember that a few months ago, I flirted with the idea of QR composting (am still flirting with it, in fact) and was fascinated by the whole concept. Well, Andy Davenport who wrote Quick Return Compost Making has agreed to write some guest posts for me!

So the next six weeks will be Compost Wednesday on allotment blog - and if you send in questions I'll pass them to Andy to answer, or you can just make a comment and he'll give us some feedback. Here's post number one!

Making a successful compost heap is probably one of the gardening activities that most conscientious gardeners have high on their list of priorities. After the necessary efforts, there is a certain sense of pride and triumph when you finally get to run your fingers through lovely, cool, dark compost. It is especially rewarding when you think about what went into the compost bin and how you have worked with nature to produce such a wonderful commodity – and it’s totally free!

But this really is just the tip of the iceberg. Good fertile compost such as that made using the Quick Return (QR) method, can literally transform the nature of a garden. By adding the compost to our soils many radical changes can take place benefiting every living creature that exists in the garden (including us) and every plant that has the good fortune to grow there.

The soil in our garden is predominantly heavy clay and when we first arrived there about 8 years ago the borders were pretty difficult to work. However, with the addition of a yearly mulch of QR compost the soil has become loose and friable and this penetrates many inches down - and that is without digging. All manner of creatures including birds, small mammals and worms all help by doing the job for us. Our soil doesn’t get heavy anymore and is very free draining and yet it doesn’t need as much watering. Not only does the soil have greater water holding properties but plant roots are able to penetrate the soil more easily and thoroughly allowing them to extract greater reserves of moisture during drought conditions. We all know that water drains down through soils but compost fed soils also allow water to move laterally through the soil- this can be a tremendous help to plants under cloches for example which can take up moisture without the need for lifting the cloche to water.

Weeding must be the most disliked job in the garden – sometimes enough to actually put people off gardening. But with the nice loose soil structure created by the addition of compost the weeds can be pulled out with ease – roots and all. Suddenly, weeding becomes quite a pleasure, especially when you add them to the compost heap, knowing that they are full of minerals that will be returned to the soil in the future. If the compost is applied as a nice thick mulch and renewed on a regular basis then weed seeds are suppressed and don’t get the chance to germinate. Mulching also has the added benefit of helping to retain moisture within the soil.

As more compost is applied to the soil over the years it becomes darker and darker. This helps the soil to warm up and can extend the growing season. Dark soil acts like a big heat sink - particularly under glass. Cloches and compost fed soil go hand in hand.

Probably the most important thing we can get from compost is our health. Bacteria and other micro organisms abound and flourish in the compost and in turn in the soil where it is added. These organisms are the building blocks of life and the beginnings of the food webs that exist in the soil. Their abundance, health and vitality is paramount to the health and vitality of all the plants and animals that exist within the ecosystem in the garden. Quite simply this health means greater resistance to pests and disease. In our own interest, we can inherit this health and robustness when we eat the fruit, vegetables and herbs grown in our compost garden.

March allotment weather: lions and lambs

2010-03-15T05:16:00.000-07:00

Not many words necessary for these pictures. We managed to wangle an afternoon off together, Himself and I, to get as much manure onto the potato bed as possible. The division of labour was simple – he would dig and I would wheel the barrow from the shop to the plot.

We still haven't resolved the potato argument, although I think we might be equal winners - he managed to get another line planted on 201, so we now have three rows of first earlies, while I managed to snitch eight potatoes and put them in big tubs in the greenhouse, so that we have early-earlies on the go (and only incidentally reducing the amount of first earlies available to be put in the ground, that definitely wasn't my ulterior motive!) and we knew that potatoes and garlic had to be planted, and that the beanpole frame needed to be moved to its new location so that we could work out the rest of our crop rotation, but before all that - manure!

I managed three barrows, along with stopping to talk to neighbours and to take photographs before everything changed.

Yes, that’s hail. And yes, it settled. From brilliant sunshine to winter wonderland in five minutes. Isn’t life wonderful?

First earlies in the ground at last!

2010-03-11T07:05:00.000-08:00

We finally got to plant out our first earlies on Monday, or at least the first batch – we got two rows in the ground, running North to South, where the peas were planted last year. Our crop rotation, given that we’re still bringing areas of the plot into cultivation, is that the potatoes and the peas/beans have essentially swapped places from where they were last year, our brassicas will be going into the area of the plot which was rotovated in November and nearly everything else is going into raised beds.

I’m happy to have made a start on the spuds, although I can tell that Himself and I will fall out over the rest of the planting because I want to make sure we have enough room in the best soil for our maincrops, which were a dismal failure last year through running out of room and having to plant them in relatively unimproved soil that hadn’t been used for several years as far as we can tell.

Himself, on the other hand, has confidence that we’ll get all the potatoes: first earlies, second earlies and maincrops into well prepared soil in good time. As earlies don’t keep as well as maincrops, I’m willing to throw away a row of first earlies that are ready to be planted, in favour of getting a row of maincrops into that spot in a few weeks. He isn’t.

My argument is a good one, I think. It’s that we actually only got 8lb of maincrop potatoes for our 5lb sowing – which is a truly pathetic result by anybody’s measure! His argument is that we’re better organised this year, which is year 2 on plot 201; the soil is in better nick; and we won’t be co-working on another plot so our energies won’t be divided.

I wonder who will win?

Purple-sprouting broccoli update

2010-03-08T03:41:00.000-08:00

So here’s a picture that I really don’t understand. Pigeons eat our broccoli – that I understand. They denude the entire leaves of the plant right down to the ribs, like feathery caterpillars – that I understand. But not eating the glorious purple florets – that I simply do not understand at all!

But there it is – having eaten the leaves, the pigeons appear to have buggered off and left the broccoli itself to us. This is the unprotected broccoli which I genuinely thought would not produce a crop at all – the broccoli in the cage is about five to seven days behind this stuff, and has all its leaves. Anyway, I’m grateful to the pigeons for leaving us this delicious feast.

And I was also wrong about the parsnips – we hadn’t eaten them all, we had two monsters lurking in the raised bed, so we lifted them yesterday and today we’re having them as part of a lamb stew cooked in the slow cooker – what a bonanza! And so, we're harvesting the last of the parsnips in the same week that I'm digging manure into the bed in which I'll be planting this year's parsnip seed - isn't that wonderful?

The ground is frozen though, so I don’t think we’ll get our spuds in until the weekend.

Heavy winters make for a hectic allotment spring

2010-03-04T10:59:00.000-08:00

I’m so very panicked and depressed when I look at this photograph from a year ago – the peas were almost ready to hit the ground running, the rhubarb was bursting from its pots, we had wallflowers ready to be planted, trays and trays of leeks that were already a couple of inches tall …

And so far, this year, we have absolutely nothing in the cold frame at all. Even the greenhouse isn’t quite entirely full yet (90% full maybe – which is okay, perhaps, although it feels like some kind of moral failure) and all we have in the ground is some shallots.

This weekend I must get some garlic planted, as well as rest of the manure into the soil for the potatoes which are now showing lovely dark shoots. I just hope that the weather cooperates!

March allotment greenhouse

2010-03-01T05:55:00.000-08:00

Here are the Big Red tomato seedlings, which I have, since this photo was taken, transplanted into individual three and a half inch pots. There were fourteen seeds in the packet and ten of them germinated, which I think is a pretty good rate of return – I shall keep three seedlings for myself, and once the others are four inches tall I’ll take them down to the allotment shop to be sold to raise funds.

The leeks are springing out of their compost, but I still think I’m not going to have enough of them – I probably need to start another tray of seeds. The Nantes carrots are showing pretty well now, and I’ve got some more nasturtium seeds on the go. The peas have almost all germinated – about thirty have appeared between 8am and midday!

I need to be starting other tomatoes, and deciding if I’m going to grow peppers from seed or wait until I can get plants from either another allotment holder or a nursery – we’ve not grown them from seed ourselves before, not having had a greenhouse. And the cucumbers should go in next week too … it’s all getting rather hectic!

And last night the frost was this heavy … I feel quite depressed when I think about it.