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today on the allotment
Today, we went down to the riding stables and collected about 20 bin bags of manure. We've long ago learnt to put only about three spadefuls per bin bag (big spadefuls admittedly) as after that the bag gets difficult to carry. Drove the short distance from stables to allotment. Weeded the area (having now removed the last of the leeks and cabbages from last year) where the sweetcorn and squashes are going to go this year. Spread several inches of manure all over.
Note that we used it as a surface mulch, not digging it in. Although the manure is well rotted (probably at least a year old), it would still be too strong for roots of plants that touch it. (Think of the brown patches on a lawn where a dog has peed - you have to dilute stuff or let it work into the soil gradually over time). When we plant the sweetcorn, we'll make sure we leave a hole in the manure several inches wide around each stem so that it won't burn it.
Sweetcorn and squashes are both greedy crops - they like to be well fed.
If you want to grow sweetcorn, plant in little pots now (if it's an early variety) or a couple of weeks from now if it's a maincrop variety. You can sow maincrop direct into the ground. The earlies need a head start as this country isn't really warm enough for sweetcorn.
If growing sweetcorn (which isn't the easiest of crops, but is very rewarding to eat), then remember that you must have a bare minimum of a dozen plants and you must plant them in a square rather than a row. They're wind-pollinated, so you have to allow for all wind directions to get them fertilised. Only grow in a sunny spot.
I also weeded around the perpetual spinich (it's really a biennial, but you can pick stuff at a time of year when very little else is cropping). I cut off all the flower stalks - if you let it flower, the leaves go all bitter. That tends to apply to most veg. As soon as they bolt (ie. send up a flower stalk) the plant isn't fit to eat. However, with perpetual spinich, you can often persuade it to produce another crop of edible leaves.
Weeded around the recently transplanted autumn raspberries which are settling in nicely. The grass clipping mulch around them has helped to surpress the weeds, but I didn't have enough clippings to do the job to the depth I'd have liked (two inches of clippings does a really good job and can still be reducing weeds nine months later when it's just an almost invisible thin brown layer), so some annual weeds were appearing. You don't want to have to do much weeding around raspberries (they're shallow rooted plants for one thing, and life's too short for another), so mulches are very much your friend here. Be it grass clippings, well-rotted manure or compost, they all do the trick and they all add organic matter and nitrogen to the soil. Just remember not to apply the mulch too close to the stems.
Cut back the brambles behind the plot. Put a layer at the bottom of the new compost heap. A layer of woody stuff at the bottom is said to help air circulation and thus make the heap rot better. (In a 'dalek' I just chuck everything in willy-nilly - I tend to cut the woody stuff into smaller pieces - they won't fit in easily otherwise)
We'll need to plant more beetroot as the slugs have got many of the seedlings (it's in the bed next to the hedge this year and that always seems to get the worst slugs). Beetroot is a very good reason, all on its own, for growing veg. Yum!
Note that we used it as a surface mulch, not digging it in. Although the manure is well rotted (probably at least a year old), it would still be too strong for roots of plants that touch it. (Think of the brown patches on a lawn where a dog has peed - you have to dilute stuff or let it work into the soil gradually over time). When we plant the sweetcorn, we'll make sure we leave a hole in the manure several inches wide around each stem so that it won't burn it.
Sweetcorn and squashes are both greedy crops - they like to be well fed.
If you want to grow sweetcorn, plant in little pots now (if it's an early variety) or a couple of weeks from now if it's a maincrop variety. You can sow maincrop direct into the ground. The earlies need a head start as this country isn't really warm enough for sweetcorn.
If growing sweetcorn (which isn't the easiest of crops, but is very rewarding to eat), then remember that you must have a bare minimum of a dozen plants and you must plant them in a square rather than a row. They're wind-pollinated, so you have to allow for all wind directions to get them fertilised. Only grow in a sunny spot.
I also weeded around the perpetual spinich (it's really a biennial, but you can pick stuff at a time of year when very little else is cropping). I cut off all the flower stalks - if you let it flower, the leaves go all bitter. That tends to apply to most veg. As soon as they bolt (ie. send up a flower stalk) the plant isn't fit to eat. However, with perpetual spinich, you can often persuade it to produce another crop of edible leaves.
Weeded around the recently transplanted autumn raspberries which are settling in nicely. The grass clipping mulch around them has helped to surpress the weeds, but I didn't have enough clippings to do the job to the depth I'd have liked (two inches of clippings does a really good job and can still be reducing weeds nine months later when it's just an almost invisible thin brown layer), so some annual weeds were appearing. You don't want to have to do much weeding around raspberries (they're shallow rooted plants for one thing, and life's too short for another), so mulches are very much your friend here. Be it grass clippings, well-rotted manure or compost, they all do the trick and they all add organic matter and nitrogen to the soil. Just remember not to apply the mulch too close to the stems.
Cut back the brambles behind the plot. Put a layer at the bottom of the new compost heap. A layer of woody stuff at the bottom is said to help air circulation and thus make the heap rot better. (In a 'dalek' I just chuck everything in willy-nilly - I tend to cut the woody stuff into smaller pieces - they won't fit in easily otherwise)
We'll need to plant more beetroot as the slugs have got many of the seedlings (it's in the bed next to the hedge this year and that always seems to get the worst slugs). Beetroot is a very good reason, all on its own, for growing veg. Yum!
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Autumn raspberries are lovely though.
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The raspberry canes you gave us have settled in nicely - I can even see what looks like buds!