The New Allotment: Mid-spring

What a difference a month makes – and what a month. My diary at the start of April records “No sign of anything growing yet except a few onions – and ground elder!” but by the end of the month it was “Popped in to water – it’s obvious things have grown since yesterday!”

21st March

24th April

By the middle of the month the potatoes, onions and beans I’d sowed in March were all in evidence. The onions in particular are doing much better in the half of the plot which I’d dug over and weeded, so my little experiment is turning out to be useful. When I planted more potatoes, 2nd earlies Wilja and Nicola, it was really evident that the compacted soil on the not-dug side drains much more slowly than the side I dug over. So if I do go for a no-dig system I’ll dig it over first to open the soil structure, as recommended by some proponents of no-dig gardening.

Sowed ‘Suger Bon’ sugar-snap peas (Lidl), early carrots ‘Nantes 2’ (Lidl) and ‘Amsterdam 2 – Amice’ (Wilko). Going for short rows in blocks rather than rows across the beds, which were what I did before. It’ll make them easier to weed. Carrots are a bit of an experiment as the soil isn’t ideal. Things were holding up well in the dry spell, moisture still coming up through the clay.

As well as the things I’ve planted and sown, I’ve had a few surprises. Several rhubarb and comfrey plants have appeared, possibly from where their roots were chucked after the plot was cleared. I dug up a sprouting stick from a rose bush and planted it near the gate. Maybe I’ll have roses trailing over my gate in years to come.

By mid-April I was starting to have to do lots of watering. Rain was unusual enough to record on 11th April. It’s going to be a year when getting into low-water habits is the thing. I’ve got a little system to cope with the low water pressure and save wasting water. Pop hose in watering can, go and do a bit of weeding. Grab can just as water is getting to the top, pop hose into water butt. Water part of a plot, put hose back into can and go back to the weeding… repeat as necessary. I’ve also started mulching the soft fruit, copying an idea from EcoWorks who I’d been working with earlier in the week. You soak newspaper then put it in a layer over watered ground. I put leaves/chippings from the avenue on top as I’ve nothing else, but straw looks better.

Newspaper and woodchip mulch

Later in the month I finally started on the brassica bed, planting a few scrounged cabbage plants, and sowing some kohl rabi ‘Superschmelz’. I’ve grown kohl rabi before, but I’m looking forward to trying a few more different brassicas as I’ve not had enough space before. I also sowed 3 rows of 8 Red Baron onions. The whites are looking good – I looked at them and thought “I know they are doing all the work, but it was me that weeded the soil and put them there” and felt a little glow of satisfaction.

I’m sure weeding’s going be a theme this year, especially once it does rain. I’ve tried to pre-empt this by covering up the worst area of weeds with cardboard. Well, maybe second-worst. The Japanese Knotweed at the bottom of the allotment is getting huge. It doubled in size in a few days earlier in the month. Scary. However the other clump looks distinctly peaky so hopefully another treatment will sort it out.

Cardboard over ground elder, thistles, etc, but Japanese knotweed loomimg in the background!

By the Easter holidays I was trying to decide where to put my main-crop potatoes, as there’s only room for a few more in the potato plot, and I still had twenty seed potatoes chitting. I started digging an area further down the plot, but it was full of sticks and rubbish. Tried another area near the top, but it was very dry and sandy with lumps of real clay, no good for spuds at all. So back to the first spot – at least it is full of organic matter. Planted Highland Burgundy Red and Robinta maincrop potatoes. The latter was particularly keen to get growing, it’d started growing little leaves on it’s ‘chits’. Later realized I’d done the traditional thing of planting my potatoes on Easter Sunday. I’ll have to find another spot for a potato bed especially for Pink Fir Apples, and make it a particularly comfy bed.

Early Spring in the New Allotment

In early March it seemed like Spring at last! On one gorgeous day I went down to the allotment to set out some self-layered Winter Jasmine from home, and plant Jerusalem artichokes – and for more digging out couch grass and ground elder roots (see above!) And whilst digging I made my mind up about the design of my plots. I’ve only dug over about half the area I want to use, and I’m keen to get started on sowing. So the solution is four plots running parallel to the long sides of the allotment, so that each is half dug (and weeded), and half not dug. Normally it’s recommended to have beds in line with the sun, and mine are at right angles, so if I have massive runner-beans other crops will get shaded. But it suits at the moment. Later I may go for something far more ‘organic’ in shape as well as ethos.

My crop rotation starts with potatoes on the plot worst for weeds. I’m hoping that their thick leaf cover will shade out weeds, and I’ll dig out weeds as I’m digging up the spuds. The next plot will have onions and roots, the next beans and peas, and finally brassicas in the last one.

It was super to just be out in the sun, listening to the birds, watching the two robins eating worms, and listening to the yaffle laughing. As the allotment got more shady as time went on, I could see that the shed casts a big shadow. But I’m not moving it! Pleased to see that I have comfrey appearing from what looked like a rubbish heap near the shed.

A few days later I had lunch sitting outside for the first time, then got on with pruning my currants – lots of currant clearwing moth caterpillars in the stems – I found out later they are a feature of the St. Ann’s site anyway, so I don’t need to worry about importing them! I cut the blackcurrants nearly to the ground, and pruned the red/white currants to ‘goblet’ shape, with varied success as there aren’t many branches yet. Decent material poked into ground as cuttings.

Then on with some garden design! I measured out a 6.6m x 3.6m plot and checked it was square – 7.5m across both diagonals. Old tent pegs and lots of string are very useful for this.

Then worked out by trial and error that I can have four beds 130cm wide with a 50cm path in between – just about right. I thought the space looked about right for four little plots and it is. I used bamboo poles to mark out the paths (see above) and scraped away a couple of inches of soil on each path and trampled them flat. It really looks like an allotment now! I covered up the second plot with black fabric to warm the soil for onions.

Spring Equinox

Time to plant potatoes! Three Premiere and three Maris Bard 1st earlies at each end of of the first bed. In the second plot I planted three rows of 7 Sturon onions at each end. The idea is to see what difference digging over has made. The third bed got two rows each of ‘Aquadulce’ and ‘Stereo’ Broad Beans. The seeds are seed-swap ones from the Alys Fowler event.

I noted that the plots are a little wide – I still have to step onto them to sow seeds in rows at right angles to the paths, and the idea is to not stand on the soil. The soil is showing its clay character by cracking in this dry weather, and the drainage when watering is lots worse on the areas not dug over. When I got home I planted the left-over onions and some beans and some peas into modules, to replace any which don’t germinate or get eaten.

At the end of March a friend who is giving up her allotment brought her water butt, downpipes and guttering, compost bin, two watering cans and loads of bamboo. Super! I feel like I’ve really got the kit to get going now.

March's Experiments

I really like devising little experiments, like trying out different composts (see http://kfonmebike.blogspot.com/2010/05/this-years-experiments.html: comparing peat and peat-free compost and sowing depths and http://kfonmebike.blogspot.com/2009/04/experiment.html, an earlier peat and peat-free comparison). This spring I've tried comparing coir compost (below left) with New Horizon (below right). The seedlings are (from the back): French Marigold, Calendula, Sorrel, Spinach, Oriental Salad, Mixed Salad, Lettuces 'Little Gem', 'May Queen', 'Marvel of Four Seasons', and finally Cabbage 'Offenham 2'. All sown 19.3.11, with vermiculite to lighted the growing media.

At the moment the New Horizon definitely has bigger plants, but the coir seedlings are nice and uniform and germination rates seem slightly better. The coir seems easier to keep moist too. Both trays are in my mini-greenhouse on a sheltered corner.

A few weeks earlier I'd set up another little experiment, comparing my windowsill and this mini-green house for raising early seeds. It's not totally a 'fair test' as they are in different containers, but they are in the same compost and both face south.

 

Large lettuce seedlings in the windowsill batch (above) and (below) smaller seedlings in the mini-greenhouse.

Below - both together for comparison (the empty modules are French Marigold and Basil, both rather elderly seed. A small lesson!)

Just because the windowsill plants are much bigger isn't necessarily a good thing. they are now out in the mini-greenhouse to harden off and are suffering rather, due to the fluctuation in temperature. Sometimes it may be best to have slower-grown, tougher seedlings.