Allotment composting

Today we don’t have snow! Instead we have torrential rain and gale force winds … can you hear me sighing in despair?

While all I can do is watch the mini-rivers running down the allotment paths, I’ve been trying to plan ahead and one thing that caught my eye was the QR Compost Making method.

QR stands for Quick Return and apparently it’s been a successful way of speeding up compost production since the 1930s. There’s a whole book dedicated to QR here and I think I’m going to give it a go. The herbs in question are nettle, dandelion, chamomile, yarrow, valerian and oak bark. Honey is also included in the formula because it is a powerful activator apparently – and the claim is that a nutrient rich compost can be produced using normal garden waste in a matter of weeks, without turning (and I do hate turning compost) and without needing to add manure. It also talks about a 'closed loop' system which means that the minimum of materials enter or leave the garden and the lowest possible range of resources (including the muscle work of the allotment holder) are expended. Also there’s a foreword from Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association and a donation will be made to the Soil Association for each copy sold.

Labels: allotment-compost, quick-return-compost

Allotment strawberry beds

My new strawberry plants arrived in the middle of last week, so I grabbed the chance on Monday to go and plant them out. Okay, that’s not strictly accurate, I skived off work (I work for myself, so I had to explain myself to myself when I got back from the allotment) to take advantage of the good weather, and I’m glad I did because it has rained, non-stop, since then.

I ordered Strawberry Alice because they are late season and I already had runners from our old strawberry bed, which are mid-season, so I hope this will give us strawberries for longer. I’ve decided to plant them in two different raised beds, partly because the way the runners from the old neglected bed (which, let me remind you, was not neglected by us but by the previous allotment owners) had managed to travel at least two yards outside the bed, so anything that limits that rampaging has to be a good thing! Himself put in another two rows of broad beans, which makes five (and I feel sure there should be a joke about how many rows of beans make five, but I can't think how it would go) while I planted the two strawberry beds.


The top of the plot, previously known as the allotment shame, has been rotavated and as I had a new compost bin to install, I got on with that too, turning the compost from bins one and two and setting up bin three. I’m expecting the compost from bin one to be ready in spring, bin two in the autumn of next year, but bin three won’t be ready for a couple of years as it has been started off with a lot of twiggy stuff that came out of the rotavation process.

Now we need to get some weed-suppressing membrane down over the dug area, in the hope of smothering a few of the perennial weeds that will recover from being chopped to pieces in short order. In fact, if you want to propagate bindweed (but who would be so insane?) rotavating it is the best way, as every tiny fragment puts out roots and becomes a new plant. I hope I got most of the bindweed out before the machine arrived but it doesn’t take more than a single length of the disgusting stuff to spread itself right over a lovely newly dug area – especially if the blades have chopped it up and spread it out, all ready to take over!

Labels: allotment-bindweed, allotment-broad beans, allotment-compost, allotment-strawberries

Rhubarb facts, myths and a recipe

Rhubarb is the monster in the garden. It grows as fast as Jack’s beanstalk and is supposedly poisonous. Served as part of school dinners it occasioned grimaces and fake spewing up in the lunch-line when the whisper went back ‘It’s rhubarb and custard for afters’ and it’s the name of a cartoon dog remembered fondly by people of a certain age.

Rhubarb is delicious, but the leaves are poisonous so you shouldn’t be eating them or feeding them to livestock. It is safe to compost them, but if you’re canny, you’ll tear them up a bit to ensure they biodegrade thoroughly. Rhubarb poisoning symptoms include: burning mouth and throat, breathing difficulties, eye pain, stomach ache and nausea, vomiting, coma and seizures – scary or what?

And don’t eat raw rhubarb stalks (as if you would) because although it won’t kill you, it will make you feel wretched.

But rhubarb is also delicious, easy to grow and keeps rabbits out of the plot if you plant it around the edge. And if you make it into a meringue, your family will love you to bits.

Rhubarb Cloud

1 kilo rhubarb
4 tablespoons light brown sugar
3 egg whites
180 grams castor sugar
A small piece of grated fresh ginger, or half a teaspoon of powdered ginger

Preheat oven to 220°c. Cut the rhubarb into thumb-length chunks and then mix it with the brown sugar. Put the mixture in a lightly buttered ovenproof dish and cook for around thirty minutes until it has softened and is giving up its juices.

Put the rhubarb aside while you let the oven cool to 180°c. Beat the egg whites until stiff and as they reach the peaking stage, add the castor sugar in a couple of stages and ginger. Now spread this over the rhubarb and bake for twenty minutes until it has a golden tinge. Serve at once.

Labels: allotment-compost, allotment-recipes, allotment-rhubarb

Composting in autumn

Have you ever wondered why so many people have so many compost heaps? Well it’s because they have different ‘maturity’. Young compost is hot and wet, mature compost is brown and friable (breaks up easily, to you and me) and there’s every stage in between, but hopefully not the black, slimy, fetid stage which is called ‘failure’!

And different heaps, made at different times of year, have different properties – the best heaps are made between late summer and late autumn because healthy compost requires around two thirds 'brown’ material such as leaves, shrubs and twigs and one third 'green material' – grass clippings, green leaf clippings, fruit and vegetable peelings and kitchen scraps. Usually you have no problem supplying the green material but it is the brown material that is more difficult to find. However, the situation is reversed in autumn when leaves, shrubs and twigs become plentiful and by creating a compost bin in autumn, you’re stockpiling this carbon-heavy material which will improve your compost composition no end.

If you have a bazillion leaves, say for example you’ve just taken over a plot with a pear tree on it, and the leaves are not diseased, you can create a wire bin or separate leaf pile under a polythene sheet and compost down the leaves there, as they will take longer, up to a year, to break down, but leaf-mould, as we all know, is pure garden gold.

And remember that, as it gets colder the composting process slows down to hibernatory levels so if you want a faster composting rate, you can line your compost bin with cardboard or pile blankets on top to trap the heat generated by the biodegrading process.

Labels: allotment-compost, allotment-leaf-mould

December allotment tasks

If like us, you’re struggling with allotment motivation in this bad weather, it’s worth thinking about all the good things that next year will bring you if you put in the effort now. This is what our neighbours have on their allotment ‘to do’ lists:

Winter pruning apple and pear trees to remove diseased wood and improve the shape – especially to try and get trees down to a reasonable height, because one of the major problems with allotment trees is that if the previous plot holder didn’t stay on top of pruning, you inherit something you can only harvest with a thirty foot ladder! It really should be a sacred trust to keep trees in trim, because it’s so hard to get them back down to picking size once they get out of hand.

Digging in manure where the brassica bed will be next year, and turning the compost in bins or heaps, to let in a bit of air which will speed up the decomposition process through the winter months when the normally active bacteria become dormant in the cold.

General weeding – especially along paths and around fruit bushes and trees, and general maintenance like checking roofs for leaks, gutters for blockages and compost bins for seeping or rotten areas if they are wooden.

Lots of plot holders are using this damp and miserable weather to highlight the areas of their plot that are holding water, and as soon as the rain stops and the frosts begin they will dig in sand and compost to help with drainage – the frosts will help break up the soil and add air to it, which encourages water to drain and gives added fertility.

Labels: allotment-compost, allotment-crops, allotment-december, allotment-fruit, allotment-tasks

This week's chore

I spoke to my father last night. His allotment is in Torquay, so their weather is definitely more clement, most of the year, than ours, but we’re still undertaking the same task – ye good olde mucke spreading.

It’s the perfect time of year to get compost or well aged manure onto your plot; the frosts will give it a good chance to break down over the winter if there’s anything that still needs to break down, it acts as a mulch around anything that needs protecting from the cold snaps, and it’s easier by far to spread goodness now, than wait until spring and have to work round all the plants that are already coming up.

It is back-breaking work though. Barrowload after barrowload to be wheeled around the site, tipped out, forked over the surface, and then back for another barrowload. One of my neighbours seems to have the right idea – more barrows!

But there’s also something very satisfying about knowing that what you do now will earn you dividends over the year ahead – all that rich food that will penetrate the soil, giving nutrients to the plants, and breaking up the soil surface to make it easier to work and better at holding water, it does make the task worthwhile.

Labels: allotment-compost, allotment-manure, allotment-winter-tasks

Salford lead the way in recycling ... their own waste products!

Salfords's allotmenteers are an imaginative bunch. The plot holders at Tindall Street allotments, in Peel Green, are hoping displays will come up smelling of roses after their own 'manure' is spread on their flowers.

Dan Griffiths, site manager, said, "We are very proud to have this toilet - we think it’s the first of it’s kind in Salford and will help us plough back manure into our plots. We won’t be using it on our fruit and vegetables - just on the flowers."

The toilet unit, bought with a £6,000 Lottery grant, has two internal boxes. After availing him or herself of the facilities, the user puts a handful of sawdust-type material inside the toilet bowl to encourage composting. After a year, the compost will be ready to be used on the allotments.

When that happens, the gardeners will transfer their attentions to the other box and the whole process starts all over again.

Labels: allotment-compost, allotment-facilities, allotment-toilets