Picking Up At The Plot

 I have been indulging my newfound interest in flowering plants and particularly wildflowers recently. Despite appearances I have been keeping up with the production of edibles too.  To bring the record up to date, here is a statement of the current state of play.

I went for alliums in a bigger way this year growing autumn and spring planted garlic as well as shallots and onions from seed. These were sown indoors in February .  The garlic has emerged and shallot and onion have been planted out on site yesterday and today. 

Broad beans sown in cells and planted out a month ago are now sitting pretty at the plot. 

Peas on the other hand have refused to be cajoled into germinating early. As a last resort I have started them sprouting in a jam jar in the kitchen and only "sown" them in cells after germination and exporting them to the greenhouse and then the plot.

Still on legumes I have sown 5 varieties of Dwarf French Bean into deep cells in the hope that the improved night temperatures will help them get started.

The greenhouse has been stuffed full each night with the paraffin heater lit on any night when the threat of frost is flagged up by the weatherman.  The main beneficiaries are flowers: Cosmos, Marigold, Lobelia, but also tomato, cucumber and pepper 

Tomatoes and Cucumber

Pepper Hungarian Hot Wax

I have attempted direct sowing at the allotment but tend to hedge my bets by using up remnant seed supplies (open packets from last year or out of date ones).  This way I don't get upset when they fail - although failure is also more likely as a result!  Parsnip, carrot, Swish chard have been experimented with in this way - and have all been resown recently..

Good Friday is a traditional potato planting day.  Easter Saturday and Sunday saw me getting all but the maincrop Rooster in. 

Potatoes in waiting

The patch allocated to potatoes in my rotational plan still had "spring" cabbages at one end and leeks at the other.  Now that's what I call bad planning! The leeks are going into the cookpot.

The ground for runner beans, celery and celeriac has been thoroughly prepped with plenty of buried organic matter.  The celery and celeriac have been growing on at home

Celery and Celeriac  - Can you tell which is which?

 but the runner beans have yet to be sown.  The courgettes squashes and sweetcorn haven't been sown either yet, but I have recently prepared a bed for them too.  My method is to bag all my weeds and trimmings in old black lined compost bags and leave them for a year or two to rot down in the hope that after another year buried underground any weed seeds will not be viable.  This keeps all the nutrients recycled on the site - all except the edible part of any crops.  

Weed suppression is something I take very seriously.  The best method is to have a crop growing but failing that deployment of weed suppressant fabric in the early part of the growing season saves hours of repetitive weeding.  As the sowing season progresses so the aesthetically unpleasing fabric gets rolled back. 

Brassicas tend to be at their best late in the growing year. None more so than purple sprouting broccoli which is currently in full production mode. 

 One again my lack of planning means the row of PSB plants is right in the middle of this year's carrot patch (under the fine mesh).  The PSB needs nets to keep the pigeons off while the carrots need fine netting to keep the carrot root fly off. so it is a bit of a logistic nightmare to cater for them both simultaneously.  As the early carrot sowing show no sign of germination yet perhaps there is no imminent prospect of running out of space just yet - the main crop carrots can wait until the PSB harvesting season is over.

This years brassicas and leeks are coming on at home in readiness for planting out. It iis going to be busy for the next month or two!

Early season brassicas

Leeks

 

Weed Suppressant Fabric - Cure or Curse

This picture, for me,  encapsulates the case for Weed Suppressant Fabric.  The net overhead and the collars around the plants give away that this was my brassica patch (in 2017).  The strip to the left: no WSF.  The rest to the right WSF applied in early spring. Which would you rather be faced with come the month of June?   No contest.  This trial evolved as a result of my wish to leave a strip in which to sow later brassicas that will not tolerate transplanting (Swedes, Pak Choi, Mooli) and was not staged to prove a point. None the less as I crouched on hands and knees under the net I thought it was worth taking this picture for the record, ready for that Autumn day when I would be warm indoors mulling over the lessons learned.  16 months later that day has arrived. 

I do still have reservations.  The fabric is made of woven plastic and is not biodegradable (although it lasts for years and is reused).  It allows water through the weave but there are concerns for the effect it has on the soil/air interface.  Do insects and worms like or abhor it and how does that affect the soil food web? I see the Garden Organic guidelines approve of it only on a limited basis for clearing weed patches although it is acknowledged as a longstanding tool for growing organic strawberries.  A web search has plenty of rants against "landscaping fabric" in vegetable patches which surprises me some as I have not experienced the problems they describe.  (Usually someone is renovating a recently acquired garden where the previous occupant has laid down a layer below soil level and weeds have grown on top. ) My piece follows (or rather precedes) the brassicas around the plot and has the bonus of already having the holes spaced out at just the right distance for planting. 

For now, I will continue to use it on my brassica patch in order to reap the benefits, but I am now wary of leaving it down in one place for more than one season.  I have just recently decided to carry out a worm survey of comparable patches with and without WSF to see if there is any discernible drop in numbers.  If you can save me the trouble by pointing to any research on this topic - do please let me know.  I don't know about you but I just find weeding a chore.

Green Manures

I have been making an effort to use green manures this year. It is so easy to miss the boat, and I will admit I have been a bit late in sowing.  

Where the alliums were (and you can still see the winter leeks) I have sown Winter Tares:

Winter Tares

And where I lifted the potatoes Grazing Rye is recently germinated:

Grazing Rye

Where the peas were I sowed red clover a few weeks ago.  As they were slow to germinate the weeds grew up and I have done my best to remove the groundsel, chickweed and speedwell to give it a chance.  (The flowers in the foreground were planted out after the broad beans.)

Clover - plus weeds and flowers!

 One reason for my renewed efforts with green manures is my concern that weed suppressant fabric, while wonderful for suppressing weeds, is bad for worms and soil health if used for more than the short term.  I will continue to use it for the brassica patch from planting out time to harvest, and short term ground preparation elsewhere, but lift it at the end of the season.  Step in green manure!

Diggin Spuds

We operate a 5 year rotation* on our allotment. There are five zones which are prepared each year according to the next year's crop.  In addition there is a sixth  growing zone, the soft fruit area which is static and has a wooden framework to support netting in the summer. The internal path separates two zones to the East from the four to the West. The picture above is of the two zones to the East. In the distance is the soft fruit area. In the foreground is this year's potato zone - and it is fully planted up! This is making me feel really positive - because that means I can concentrate my efforts on the four remaining zones, And this is how they currently look - in need of attention. Our patch stops at the shed (or more precisely the path in from of it)

Here's a reverse view with the alliums in the foreground.  There are three rows of garlic and four of onion so far. You can just see the corner of the first carrot tent to the right

*The 5 year rotation is a progression from Potatoes to Legumes to Brassicas to Curcubits to Alliums and Other Roots.  This has been tinkered with a bit particularly to accommodate the use of weed suppressant fabric with all the advantages that brings.

Just now the potato zone is looking the best to me!


Diggin

Trampled Underfoot

Plastic Man - Plot Tour

Onions

Garlic

Strawberries

Brassica Patch - This year's in foreground, last year's beyond the fence:

Spot the common theme?  Weed Suppressant Fabric!  Hence the Plastic Man reference. But don't worry, there's plenty of room yet for the weeds in the potato and legume patches

Potatoes, "Others" with Brassicas in background

not to mention things like parsnips :

Currently the paths are the area most in need of attention. I think I'll get the sowing and planting sorted first.

A Weed Free Year!!!

Last year I tried out Weed Suppressant Fabric (or Weed Control Membrane) where I was growing sweetcorn and squashes.  (By the way, the blue cage is for blueberries which sit on top of an ericaceous pit and cannot therefore be moved easily).  Before planting it looked like this:

 

 

.....and then once, the crops settled in this...



 

 

....and finally this riot of greenery:

 

Now here's the interesting part, this is how it looked yesterday:

The garlic was planted through the fabric last autumn in the same places as the sweetcorn and squash, with some extra holes added. For onions I have cut slits and then weighed the fabric down with bricks to stop the wind getting under it.

Here's another angle where you can see the onions in the forground and the garlic behind.

And do you know what,  last year's brassica patch is not looking to bad either. (This will be rolled back as I get around to sowing parsnips and carrots etc.) 

 

Count me in as a fabric fan!



Ooops Sharks on the Loose

I think I may have overplanted my curcubit patch. In there are Sharks Fin Melons, Kabocha Squash and courgettes. Also half a dozen sweetcorn. 

Not so long ago it looked like this. I think there has been an extra boost from the weather and the weed suppressant fabric.

And there are signs that the plants have no intention of stopping at the perimeter fence

Not to be left out the brassicas also appreciate the WSF treatment:

Given that I have returned from two weeks holiday the really impressive thing is the lack of weeds!  (Of course there are plenty enough left in other areas.) 

Brassica Action Day and First Fruit

Today I planted out my brassicas. Due to the weed suppressant fabric the ground was clean of weeds so I was able to get started straight away, needing only a knife and a dibber to cut a slit in the plastic and plant the seedlings.

The ground was moist despite the dry week, although I did water them in, cover with a net and apply slug control.

Once they are sitting up I will deploy the brassica collars to fend off the cabbage root fly.

We also picked our first strawberries (Marshmello) today:

Some redcurrants and raspberries were ready too!

These pictures are to prove to Cathy in Grenoble that we are only 4 weeks behind here in Edinburgh!


And just in case you were wondering how our bathroom ended up, here are the after pictures:

We are very pleased and very clean!

Rievaulx

Rievaulx Abbey Ruins

On Saturday we had a rendezvous in Thirsk and managed a sojourn into the Yorkshire Moors and stopping off at this  pastoral spot.

Back home today I used the weed suppressant fabric offcut from the brassica patch to carpet our "Exotics".  Sounds better than curcubits and besides we can't move the blueberries as they sit atop a buried liner that helps create that acidic bog effect. This is where the courgettes gherkins and Sharks Fin Soup Melon  (also called Fig Leaf Gourd) are going to go this year.

At home the beanage is coming on nicely:

Next weekend looks like a frantic planting weekend.

Back to Rievaulx Village for a final picture which would be any estate agents dream: