Weeders Awake

[gradus]

Time to get earth under the nails again.
Compost spreading underway - I am now of the no-dig persuasion, partly because my knees persuaded me and partly because it works just as well on our light-ish soils.
My only growing crops are now garlic and broad beans, pigeons having no taste for either but having consumed every last green leaf on cabbage, kale and sprouting broccoli, even raiding the cabbages in the polytunnel when Eunice blew open the door.
My over-wintering Lemon looks to have been killed by a severe infestation of mealy bug but oddly a small Lime tree and Kumquat were untouched.
The impetuous Pluot tree is about to burst into flower along with the Aprium and Apricot and the only chance of fruit from these impatient trees lies with hand pollination.
My poor old broken-backed Alton greenhouse is about 50/50 cracked glass and polythene, barely holding itself up but I won't be administering the coup de glass (sorry) just yet, as the NFU Mutual have yet to decide the storm damage claim and it may well have to soldier on.
Pleased to have found a packet of Ananas seed today- still my favourite tomato.

[french frank]

Pleased to have found a packet of Ananas seed today- still my favourite tomato.

Ah, was about to comment on the number and variety of exotica. Tomatoes at home with garlic and broad beans, rather than lemon, lime, kumquat, pluot, apricots. Was impressed at your growing pineapples from seed!

[Dave2002]

The impetuous Pluot tree is about to burst into flower along with the Aprium and Apricot and the only chance of fruit from these impatient trees lies with hand pollination.
My poor old broken-backed Alton greenhouse is about 50/50 cracked glass and polythene, barely holding itself up but I won't be administering the coup de glass (sorry) just yet, as the NFU Mutual have yet to decide the storm damage claim and it may well have to soldier on.
Pleased to have found a packet of Ananas seed today- still my favourite tomato.

I was about to ask "what is the BWV number?"

Pluot trees - a cross between plums and apricots - how interesting!

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edi...mcot-trees.htm Also plumcots - which are presumably not trademark protected.

[ardcarp]

I am now of the no-dig persuasion

There was a question on Gardner's Question Time today. A guy had just acquired an allotment which was neglected and overgrown. He was daunted by the prospect of getting it into usable condition. The first answer seemed to be to cover two thirds of it with tough black polythene (?) and just concentrate on a bit of it. Then the no-dig option was discussed. You cover the whole allotment with cardboard and load the top with compost. This kills the weeds, and you plant into the compost. You can keep doing the same each year...I believe some call it 'lasagne gardening' ! My problem was imagining how much mulch/compost you'd need to cover a whole allotment every year. An industrial amount I suspect.

Not having an allotment the problem doesn't arise for me; but does anyone here use this method?

[oddoneout]

There was a question on Gardner's Question Time today. A guy had just acquired an allotment which was neglected and overgrown. He was daunted by the prospect of getting it into usable condition. The first answer seemed to be to cover two thirds of it with tough black polythene (?) and just concentrate on a bit of it. Then the no-dig option was discussed. You cover the whole allotment with cardboard and load the top with compost. This kills the weeds, and you plant into the compost. You can keep doing the same each year...I believe some call it 'lasagne gardening' ! My problem was imagining how much mulch/compost you'd need to cover a whole allotment every year. An industrial amount I suspect.

Not having an allotment the problem doesn't arise for me; but does anyone here use this method?

I have used versions of that method, boht on my allotment and more recently in my garden. As you say the amount of material needed is daunting, but some allotment sites are lucky enough to have access to council green waste or other material free or at very reduced cost. Charles Dowding the no-dig guru was(and I think still is) able to source material from a farm and also has a big array of compost heaps, which is how he manages to mulch his beds each year. He is running a commercial salad production concern though so inputs have to be high and labour reduced wherever possible. On a more modest scale the cardboard and thick mulch help with the initial preparation - suppressing weeds and beefing up the soil - and after that keeping on top of weed regrowth(prevention ideally by removing any weeds as soon as they appear to prevent seeding and gradually reduce the soil's seedbank) and adding compost and mulch as available and required should suffice. What tends to be skated over or even entirely omitted is that there is a stage before the laying down of cardboard (or whatever has been chosen), and that is cutting down the jungle and clearing the junk - metal, rubble, carpet, demolished sheds and greenhouses etc.
I wanted to extend my veg garden last year and had arranged for someone to come and strip the turf from the lawn area and dig over the soil but that fell through late in the day so I put down cardboard, newspaper and a large quantity of my mother's papers which were finally no longer needed inside frames (not raised beds) rigged up from two wooden boxes, a neighbour's laminate flooring and some slats from a broken fence, just to demarcate the beds from the remaining lawn, and put whatever I could muster on top - a mix of soil from elsewhere in the garden, compost from relocated heaps, and some bought in cheap potting compost. It worked pretty well the first season although the soil was so hard that planting through the layers was not as straightforward as I had hoped. The layer above the cardboard dried out rather quickly due to a combination of less than ideal depth and extended periods without rain.By the beginning of this year the patches had turned into something approaching veg beds, but still need a lot of compost added. I've only been able to use one though due to the drought putting a stop to much of my veg growing, so this winter will be spent getting them closer to where they need to be for veg growing. The method worked well for annual weeds but mares tail, couch grass and ground elder still get through, although in lesser quantities than would otherwise be the case and as the soil improves removing them becomes easier. It has meant I now have veg beds which I would not otherwise have achieved as I couldn't have stripped the turf and dug the ground over myself.

[gradus]

I didn't need the cardboard but I've used the compost spreading method - really a thick mulch - with mixed success. It certainly demands a large supply of compost or an equivalent and recently I read that there is some research that supports the use of shrub and tree clippings after they've been put through a grinder, the sort of machine used by tree surgeons to break up branches, and that should be free or very low cost from tree surgeons who generate vast quantities. From observing other allotment holders who have used it I should say it works as well as the compost that I buy that has been treated at a high temperature to kill weeds and pathogens but costs around £70 for a builders bag delivered to the plot.
Where I've found the Dowding method less successful is on ground that has been reclaimed from brambles and other rank weeds. The results show a need for plant feeding as well as compost mulching but the no dig method is never a quick fix and I think/hope that results will improve with each successive season.
Please though, let it rain!

[Dave2002]

I've not tried these methods on a large scale. One warning though - don't use horse manure. I can't remember now how I did it, but once I was able to get some horse manure either free or very low cost. It does fertilise the soil, but unfortunately there are likely to be seeds within the manure which will eventually spring up. In the long run I can't recall it being a problem as the material most likely did function as a useful soil conditioner, but it's not a good solution in the short term as the weeds which emerge are unwanted and a nuisance.

[oddoneout]

I've not tried these methods on a large scale. One warning though - don't use horse manure. I can't remember now how I did it, but once I was able to get some horse manure either free or very low cost. It does fertilise the soil, but unfortunately there are likely to be seeds within the manure which will eventually spring up. In the long run I can't recall it being a problem as the material most likely did function as a useful soil conditioner, but it's not a good solution in the short term as the weeds which emerge are unwanted and a nuisance.

Horse manure is renowned for being seedy but these days a far bigger problem is the herbicide contamination risk. I won't go into details but this will do for starters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7vr-GlzuZs
This has been an issue for a long time and shouldn't be happening at all if all the required handling and tracking procedures were being followed. Weeds may be a nuisance but simply don't compare in problem terms - at least they can be a positive contribution to the soil or compost heap... More than 25 years ago I used horse muck from a couple of acquaintances on my allotment for several years and for the most part pulling the weeds and leaving them to rot down in situ worked well - the mulch effect was useful on the light soil. The chemical residue issue then was confined to wormers and other vet drugs, and could be dealt with by composting for about 6 months . The extent of contamination of hay fed to animals now is such that I wouldn't consider even rabbit hutch cleanings if offered. I had the experience a couple of seasons ago of what can happen when ordinary hormone herbicides get to sensitive crops such as tomatoes (neighbour's spray drift) but at least that was just one season's crops affected and the residues broke down. Being stuck with something that might take years and enormous amounts of physical work to deal with is not a risk I wish to take. A friend has lost two years crops on his small part-time veg growing business and has had to set up a complete new veg area to avoid any more problems. He accepted well rotted horse much from a neighbour who was unaware that the hay being fed came from sprayed fields - but the hay should not have been sold on for that purpose without warnings about disposal of the manure. There are currently concerns about contamination of bagged compost, and I would now be very careful about how I would use local authority green waste soil improver (not that it's likely here since it's too expensive) - and certainly not on a veg patch.

[Dave2002]

Thanks for alerting us to this risk. The video seems to explain it well enough - with the reasons outlined and suggested testing procedures to minimise potential problems.

[ardcarp]

Has anyone tried sowing Phacelia? It sounds almost too good to be true. It's promoted as a 'green manure'. It is excellent ground-cover, smothering weeds, and it attracts bees in large numbers when its attractive blue flowers arrive. I've got that far with my first attempt (covering about 4 square metres) and it looks marvellous. After flowering (which seems to go on for ages) you just dig it in and it improves the soil for whatever comes next. Maybe more phacelia! See pic. You can also leave some to go to seed Our reason for using it was to do something with a redundant patch at the end of our garden which we'd always used for bonfires and general dumping. We've decided to stop bonfires.



I see from this website....

https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/how-to-grow-phacelia/

....that you're supposed to dig it in for 'green manure' purposes before it flowers. Well we like the flowers and the bees, so for the time being we'll just carry on having a phacelia patch.

PS We first saw it in small fields on the Ile de Batz in Brittany some years ago. Mrs A couldn't identify it, but we found out about it later and realised why it was being grown.

[Serial_Apologist]

Has anyone tried sowing Phacelia? It sounds almost too good to be true. It's promoted as a 'green manure'. It is excellent ground-cover, smothering weeds, and it attracts bees in large numbers when its attractive blue flowers arrive. I've got that far with my first attempt (covering about 4 square metres) and it looks marvellous. After flowering (which seems to go on for ages) you just dig it in and it improves the soil for whatever comes next. Maybe more phacelia! See pic. You can also leave some to go to seed Our reason for using it was to do something with a redundant patch at the end of our garden which we'd always used for bonfires and general dumping. We've decided to stop bonfires.



I see from this website....

https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/how-to-grow-phacelia/

....that you're supposed to dig it in for 'green manure' purposes before it flowers. Well we like the flowers and the bees, so for the time being we'll just carry on having a phacelia patch.

PS We first saw it in small fields on the Ile de Batz in Brittany some years ago. Mrs A couldn't identify it, but we found out about it later and realised why it was being grown.

What an excellent idea - thanks, I'll pass this on to our gardener! I wouldn't do it for myself, but maybe for Celia!

[ardcarp]

Yes, we remembered its name (after several brain-fogs...one being physalis, another syphilis ) by realising it ended with the lovely name Celia. Good luck to Celia!

[oddoneout]

Has anyone tried sowing Phacelia? It sounds almost too good to be true. It's promoted as a 'green manure'. It is excellent ground-cover, smothering weeds, and it attracts bees in large numbers when its attractive blue flowers arrive. I've got that far with my first attempt (covering about 4 square metres) and it looks marvellous. After flowering (which seems to go on for ages) you just dig it in and it improves the soil for whatever comes next. Maybe more phacelia! See pic. You can also leave some to go to seed Our reason for using it was to do something with a redundant patch at the end of our garden which we'd always used for bonfires and general dumping. We've decided to stop bonfires.



I see from this website....

https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/how-to-grow-phacelia/

....that you're supposed to dig it in for 'green manure' purposes before it flowers. Well we like the flowers and the bees, so for the time being we'll just carry on having a phacelia patch.

PS We first saw it in small fields on the Ile de Batz in Brittany some years ago. Mrs A couldn't identify it, but we found out about it later and realised why it was being grown.

It's lovely isn't it? One common name is scorpion flower, from the coiled flower head, another fiddlehead for the same reason. The flowers are good for cutting. As you have discovered, for green manure purposes it's supposed to be dug in when green, when it has the most value to give to the soil. Incorporating such material is hard work, and in any case opinion now is increasingly in favour of not disturbing the soil ecosystem by digging. When I used green manures on the allotment I used to cut them down and let the worms do the work - necessity made me a very early adopter of no-dig! Sometimes if the soil was sufficiently damp and loose I would pull out the plants to compost, either sowing another green manure as ground cover, mulching with part rotted compost , or sowing/planting out more crops, depending on need and time of year. The decompostion of green manures inhibits germination so sowing immediately after digging in isn't a good idea, I think 4-6 weeks gap is recommended. Frost will kill off the phacelia and leave a network of bleached stems on the surface which is of use in protecting the soil over winter and will be gradually taken down into the soil.
I liked to sow a mix of phacelia, buckwheat (white flowers) and red clover, all annuals, and leave it to flower - colourful, good for insects and for cut flowers, and they did well on my light soil. The phacelia would sometimes come back through selfseeding but not in any quantity, and the other two didn't.

[ardcarp]

Frost will kill off the phacelia

Assuming we get any! The West Country is like a furnace at the moment! Mind you, climate change could mean more extremes, so perhaps our phacelia will get duly frosted.

[oddoneout]

Assuming we get any! The West Country is like a furnace at the moment! Mind you, climate change could mean more extremes, so perhaps our phacelia will get duly frosted.

Well there is that. I found that it didn't take much frost to kill it, but it doesn't really matter as either way it's benefiting the soil. If it doesn't get killed by frost I think you may find it just runs out of steam and dies back anyway - shorter days often precipitate senescence.