More boarding, more shuffling, more relocating of crap

Another early start at the plot on Sunday AM, saw me try to complete the growing beds. However, after the hassles of transplanting and splitting Rhubarbzilla, I was already knackered. It kind messed with my plans a bit as I really wanted to leave it there but couldn't really find anywhere else to put the compost bin that didn't mean a complete rework of my plans.

I'd spent another few hours the previous day stripping hundreds of staples and bits of tape from another carload of boxes and turned up with a carload to see the large bed was looking a little ragtag from the wind with some gaps appearing. Clearly the manure/woodchip mulch layer was supposed to be keeping the cardboard down. Need some woodchip desperately before the wind destroys all my hard work!

I used some large flat pieces and weighed them down with timber to keep them covered...This central section will eventually be encroached upon - I just don't have enough manure to do it this season.

I then set about filling the walkways between some of the other beds using the tiny amount of woodchip left on site. I managed to procure around 4 barrow loads.

 

I then set about creating 3 new beds and finishing the large square one I started last weekend

See the pallets forming my composting area? Just to the left of them are two new beds - these are directly above the original site of the rhubarb, which is now just out of shot on the left of them

The composter is now going to get the full blast of the sun all day, which should aid my composting

The pictures are deceptive, these are somewhat larger/longer than they look - this two are for Dave's runner beans. I've tried to make all of the beds around 15cm-20cm deep

I've got Friday off - I suspect I'll be up here again to get that centre section done and possibly even  start digging the pond. Needs mulching there too. Having had some advice from Charles Dowding on his excellent forum http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/forums/ I need to break the manure down into golfball sized chunks. That's a task in itself as many of the beds are like this but there are definitely some larger pieces which need working on.

SO MUCH TO DO!!!

....and I absolutely love it.

A Tricky Transplant

I'm sure that at some point, this plot will ease up on the hard work and start to deliver me some return. I'm not complaining, I love the physical aspect of it; being a desk bound office worker I find it easy to put on a few pounds and much tougher to shift it. I also stare longingly out of the window on fair days, pining for an opportunity to enjoy some warm sun and a little breeze rather than the stuffy suffocating air of an office attached to a warehouse.

For the moment, I'm resigned to tough physical labour, and it seems pretty endless right now!

Case in point; the gigantic Rhubarb crown which decided to appear precisely where my compost bin needs to be, just as I was setting it up. Now, I don't even eat rhubarb, but my good friend Dave does, and Dave has been the saviour of some of my finest Bonsai, housing and watering them for me in the absence of me having a garden - so it was the least I could do to give it a home where he could tend it. I've already offered him a section of the plot for his runner beans, so a little more for rhubarb wouldn't hurt at all.

Here's the undug crown. Innocuous looking wouldn't you say?

 

Me too, until I dug the damned thing out! It took me 40 minutes to get under it, to a depth of around 2 ft, it was oval and approx. 3ft long. It left a gigantic hole which I spent ages trying to fill in

I then spent around 20 minutes grunting and cursing as it was too heavy to lift, so I couldn't get it into the wheelbarrow, I tried dragging it, pushing it and generally failed miserably. I eventually managed to get it onto a piece of cardboard and dragged it across the plot to the corner which I had prepared earlier with a layer of well rotted manure(there's plenty of that to go around) and had dug what I thought was a big enough hole. Obviously that wasn't going to cut it! My friend likes to force his rhubarb, and luckily for him I had a few spare composting bins knocking about which will do the job perfectly.... so I cut the rhubarb crown straight down the centre and planted both, firmly into two holes.

I mulched the earth around the outside, and originally intended to cover this with more manure and compost. However, if you are eagle eyed you will spot that my barrow contains lots of couch grass which I was taking down to the green bins before I could get more manure/compost.



 

While I was down there I noticed that there was just enough woodchip left in the communal pile to cover the recently laid cardboard and rhubarb patch - so that's what I did! It's just the job, and provides a neat and attractive front corner to the plot.

Generally speaking I think that Rhubarb should normally be divided in late April/early May but I had no choice in this instance as I need to get things moving on my plot. Rhubarb is pretty resilient, so I'd be amazed if it didn't spring back.


Finally I'd managed to get my composting area cleared!


More soon....


Dean

Progress with my no-dig beds!

Two 7.30am starts on a weekend? What the hell is wrong with me?


This weekend was a pretty pivotal time in the development of my new plot. I had a delivery of well rotted manure scheduled to be dropped off at 9.30am on Saturday, which meant that I needed to get there early to lay down the cardboard mulch layer. As I've covered previously in my blog, the idea is that the cardboard acts as a weed barrier, suffocating light to any weeds or grass which are below. Over time(between 3 months and a year depending on species) this will kill off weeds below, which will then rot down and give the nutrients back to the soil. Once you apply the compost/manure layer over the top you have a bed ready for planting, and over time the cardboard layer also rots, adding carbon while simultaneously conditioning the soil.

But of course, you firstly need to remove all of the cellophane, sticky tape and staples from the boxes. This is where my superb and much loved girlfriend sacrificed her Friday night and helped me to get it all off on a full carload of boxes.

So, I dressed up warm looked out of the window at 7.30am on Saturday, and of course it was the first snowy day of the year! Thank goodness for thermals!

Here was the plot as it looked when I arrived. BRRRRR!

Mission number one was to unload the piles of boxes from the car and get laying them out to create beds before the muck was delivered. This is the end bed(East side) which will house my asparagus - it took a LOT of boxes to cover. I laid them like fish scales to protect them from lifting in the northerly wind.

When I initially rang the farmer to order the manure, he asked me if I needed £20, £30 or £40 worth. Having never ordered this kind of volume before I didn't have a clue, but it did occur to me that running out would be a bit of a problem.

So I ordered the £40 load and at bang on 9.30am it turned up.....

All 4 tonnes of it  😔

 

I'm not ashamed to admit that when I saw how much there was and realised I had to shift every single bit of it on my wheelbarrow, I nearly created a little of my own...

I duly then spent the next 4 hours of Saturday and from 8am-2pm the following day, shovelling shit into my barrow and wheeling it back and forth across the plot. It was hard, sloppy work in the rain.

What the picture doesn't convey is the shitty quagmire which really slowed things down.

Also caught a flat on the wheelbarrow, which lost me an hour (I know, that's the crappest flat ever) Still, I made great progress and built four beds by Sunday lunchtime

That end bed at the back is around 9 metres long

 

The section above to the right of the barrow is where the pond, hostas  and lupins will be going. The large 9m bed behind will hold salad and my long term Asparagus project

I'll add another layer of cardboard then woodchip the gap in the centres of the beds once they replenish the stockpile - which they do 3 or 4 times per year.

Got a lot of work done this weekend, but still have around 1.5T of manure to shift. I'm really happy - spent a whole weekend up there getting filthy, but it was worth it.

Bottoms up!



Prices, plans and people in the know

Just a quick post today.

I'm constantly staggered at the difference in price of things from commercially advertised places, as opposed to referrals. For example - I googled "well rotted manure" and after much searching, I managed to find a tonne for £110 delivered, or £50 for 20 bags from a different supplier.


Seemed very pricey, particularly as allotmenteers are renowned for their thriftiness? However, a quick chat with one of the locals (who incidentally had a huge pile of poo on his plot) told me of a local farmer who will drop off a "full trailer" for £40.


It seems that a full trailer is around 4 tonnes. With a combined square footage of 245m I think this should give me enough to work with using the no dig method.


Here's my plan, using as many natural elements as possible. Some tweaking still to do...

Left side

2 compost bins, right next to where my manure will be delivered

Comfrey - purely grown for composting and comfrey tea

Onions and Garlic

Sunflowers & corn

Courgettes

Globe Artichoke

More corn and artichoke

Centre (inc green house)

Sweetpeas - to provide summer scent & colour next to the seating area

Pond Area

Alternating Hostas and Lupins - for colour and also for attracting slugs to the frogs (who will eat them), and to keep them away from the salad!

Lower

Broccoli - I eat it nearly every day….

Right Side

Tomatoes - close enough to keep an eye on from the greenhouse area (I will also grow them inside)

Salad - various

Large asparagus bed - this will take 2 full seasons to establish but I eat a LOT of asparagus so I've dedicated a large area. (Depending on cropping I may extend this area later)

There's a lot of work to do here, but it leaves my other plot exclusively for Bonsai.

I just had authority to put an 8X6 greenhouse on too, so that'll be my next mission. Lots of exciting things to do!

No Dig-gity

Why use more effort than is absolutely necessary? And why use chemicals, fertilisers and pest control when nature can do the exact same job for nada?


These are all points which I have been mulling over since taking on my allotment, having spent some time investigating the "No-Dig" horticultural approach.


The theory is this:


When you turn soil over, you break up the important fungal /microbial relationships within the soil. There's a chain of important microbes and organisms living in the soil which are disrupted when you dig, including earthworms. Fungus such as mycorrhiza exist and contribute to creating a rich healthy soil. This in turn means that we then add fertilisers and other additives to the soil. We also disrupt weed roots which break up and then regrow in multitudinous numbers, making weeding a total ballache.We kill the worms, the fungus and the microbes. Then we have to wait for them to restablish....which we then destroy again the next year.


So what would happen if we just put the right ingredients into the soil(green Nitrogen rich matter, and brown carbon rich matter) in the right quantities, and never dig the soil? What would then happen if we used an organic barrier, such as cardboard to prevent weeds coming through, eventually not only killing them, but taking advantage of their mass in the soil to add back even more nutrients?


Well...by not disturbing those oh-so-important soil dwellers, we allow them to get to work on breaking down organic matter and provide a rich, aerated humus.


Don't just believe me, check out the master - Charles Dowding and his 30+ years of refining this approach. 


http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/no-dig-growing/why-no-dig/


Plus points:


Super rich healthy soil
Easy planting
Easy harvesting
Very little weeding
Bountiful crops
No Digging!!!


So this is going to be my approach. It relies heavily on mulching so I'm going to need to sharpen my composting skills and make sure I use all available materials.


Check this tale of two allotments using the no-dig approach


http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/no-dig-growing/allotments/


In the spirit of Permaculture planting, I'm also going to be using a combinatory approach to pest control - I'm creating a medium sized pond for the centre of the plot - with the aim of attracting frogs and toads to control the slug population, and wildflowers to attract the right kind of bugs - therefore bringing more slug predators(birds) to the plot.


It's a massive topic but there are a gazillion videos and websites dedicated to this simple, natural way of farming.


I can't wait to try my hand at it! No Dig-itty!

A clearer picture!

I spent a lot of time at the plot on Saturday, clearing the previous tenant's crap out and putting it on her remaining plot, to ensure that I didn't get lumbered with another person's shite. Once I'd cleared it it gave me a much clearer idea of what I'm going to do.

If you look below, I've broken it into 3 clearly defined areas, left to right.

Although the perspective is hard to follow, these three strips are all the same size - with the centre one having 2 paths across(which I've also highlighted). Where I'm standing is a thin strip, maybe 2 metres wide which has super rich soil from being the previous composting area.

 

The very end section furthest from the camera in the pic above, is the section below. It currently has 2 large raised beds, which the previous tenant is going to move this weekend. The quality of the soil in this section is gorgeous. It's slightly compacted from my site clearing but the soil is granular and light.

I spent half an hour clearing the weeds you see below with a  fork - each and every fork I lifted to clear the weed brought up with it around 5-6 big juicy earthworms which is an excellent sign

Next week I have 3 tonnes of well rotted manure turning up and Ill be starting my "no-dig" adventure. I'll be posting up info on no-dig over the next week, with lot of links and vids/pics!

Til next time...

What I need now, before I've planted a thing.....

...is another plot!

I'm so excited - I've been wracking my brains on how to squeeze all of the things I want to grow into the very limited amount of space I have on my plot. Not only that, but the soil wont be ready for any kind of root veg due to my use of raw manure earlier last year - a rookie mistake which I wont make again. I have learned about the use of green manures to treat soil, and have been reading and watching videos heavily on the organic/no-dig/Permaculture approaches to running smallholdings.

The no dig method seems to be the most logical and it's something I'll explore more in future posts, but either way I have very little room for manoeuvre with my 63msq plot.

So it must be fate or some kind of 'ting outta my control; I nipped to the site to check the weeds this weekend for the first time in weeks and bumped into the new site manager who was measuring up a plot just 8 metres above mine.

After quickly enquiring about the state of affairs, I learned that the owner had had enough and was downsizing by 66% and that the rest of her plot was up for grabs - literally one plot across from mine, what a result!

I quickly staked my claim and after much chatting and exchanging of details, I now await the paperwork for a 90msq plot which has been tended well for the past 15 years! It has some green clover and grass but nothing too heavy and compared to the traumas of clearing my last site it should be a breeze.

As you can see, some of it is already covered, and if I'm lucky, the 2 very large raised beds(which are full of beautiful soil) should come with it.

Front right view from the track;

and front left view from the track - you can see my existing plot on the right of the pic - it starts at the bright blue butt

I now have the room to start growing the more space hungry stuff, like courgettes, LOADS of salad, and artichokes, onions and leeks and even have room still for a greenhouse - in which I intend to grow as many tomatoes as the structure can hold !!

There are some permaculture ideas which I want to implement here, such as a frog pond (for slug control), wild flower areas (for attracting beneficial insects and birds) and the ability to rotate over a number of years.

This has been a great result and I'm eagerly awaiting the go ahead.

Timing, in all things bonsai particularly, but generally in horticulture I've found, is the key to success. My fortuitous timing over the weekend resulted in a big step forward for me and I'm bubbling with delight!

More soon 

Deano