No more bare knees

I learned not to wear sandals to the allotment last year when I got bitten by ants, this year I have also learned not to wear shorts.  I was bitten by a solitary (and now very dead) ant on Saturday morning that crawled up onto my kneeling pad, and my knee has subsequently swelled up quite dramatically in reaction. Ants are now top of my hit list. Hopefully, many of them will be taken care of by application of the new Grow Your Own nematodes, which apparently contain a microscopic worm that ants cannot stand. Whilst it doesn't actually kill them, it makes them move out!  It also covers a host of other pests, so I'm going to give it a go.  Another weapon in the armoury against little beasties that want to eat my crops before me.

Distinct absence of April showers

It's been a very dry April, the soil is now rock solid and splitting in big cracks that I would only expect to see at the height of summer. Hopefully adding all the compost will help with that - I've stopped sifting it through the bread crate and just started chucking it by the wheelbarrow-full onto the beds that need it. Sifting would be great in a perfect world but I'll just rake out the big bits instead.

First signs of carrot seedlings this week, they've actually come up faster than my radishes which is a surprise, but it's been too dry for small seeds to germinate properly. Also this month I've been using my liquid worm compost to fertilise my garlic and flowering broad beans. I've also had a big bonfire of old weeds and branches thanks to the dry spell, and collected a bucket full of wood ash which has been spread on my plot. Hopefully all these measures will lead to better crops this year.

Purple sprouting broccoli has now gone purple and started sprouting in abundance, except that half of it has been stripped off by birds. So I've had to construct a big netting pyramid to try and keep them off. I shant bother growing much in the way of brassicas in the future, there are just too many pests out to get them. I am already plotting what to grow next year, and intend to ditch a few of the boring potatoes and onions for something a bit more unusual, now I'm getting the hang of growing stuff.

Easter update

I've just had a week off work and managed to get loads done on the plot. Spring has definitely kicked in, as the weeds have started growing  - neighbour John told me that's the best way to tell if it's time to plant you're own seeds.

The local farmer I mentioned in my previous post has turned up trumps. I phoned him on Monday morning and within the hour he turned up at the allotments in a big digger, with two tons of compost in the front bucket. A bargain at £25, it is composted green waste collected by the council and rotted down in huge, steaming silos on his farm.

It is a bit coarse, having bits of stick and branch in it, so I have been sorting it through an old shop bread crate before adding it to the beds. I've been adding about four wheelbarrow loads per bed, and I still think that I could probably add more, but that is about as much compost as I can stand to sort through the holes in a bread crate in one go.

The onions I planted have started to come up, and it turns out they are shallots. That's good because that is what I wanted to plant first. The rest of the onions went in last week, red and white. 

This evening I planted my first potatoes of the year, ones that survived The Moog's efforts to eat them raw, called Blue Danube. I also dug over another bed in less than 30 minutes, with my azada purchased from Get Digging. It would have taken me at least a couple of hours with a spade, and I would have aggravated my back too - no such problems with the new tool. I have yet to decide what to call it; one of my neighbours called it an axe-hoe, which I think suits it a bit better than azada.  Apparently there is an ex-Ghurka here who has one very similar, and he reputedly dug his whole plot barefoot using it, after turning down the loan of a British spade.

Things to do in March

If you visit any gardening website this month, pretty much all you will find is "a list of things to do in March." I assume this is because the journalists are all too busy enjoying our recent spells of milder weather to write anything new and are happy to post the same thing they did last year.

Anyway, here is what I've done in March, which is different to last year:

• Planted Sunflower and Gazania seeds - never grown Gazanias before, got them free off the front of a magazine and not sure where I will put them yet. They're coming up already.
• Put a load of Chive seeds in, these I collected last year from my own plants so not sure if they will germinate, I have patchy results with collecting seed.
• Planted some squash seeds. I have read (in a list of things to do in March) that squashes benefit from early planting because they take so long to reach maturity, so I've popped some seeds of 'Avalon F1' in pots on the windowsill.

Other things happening on the plot this month include burning of old rubbish that has been stacked up since August waiting for a dry spell to burn it, and adding organic fertiliser to my garlic and onions. Well I think they're onions, they could be shallots, I don't know.  I've also dug up most of my compost heap and used the compost on a couple of beds, but I will need a load more for the rest of the plot. As mentioned before, I don't think I've been adding enough.  I have the number of a local farmer who I'm told will deliver a trailer-full of locally composted green waste on his tractor, I will try this and report back.

Digging it

I can't seem to bend in the middle these days. So, I've been looking at ways that I can still achieve what I want without hurting myself.

Normal spades and forks are just too short. So the first thing I tried was a long-handled shovel. I've seen these advertised as Irish or Cornish shovels, but I always think of them as American, the sort you see in the movies with a long handle. This is OK, but it's very heavy, and really isn't much use for proper digging, because the pointed, curved blade is the wrong shape. It is still great for shifting compost and, unsurprisingly, shovelling. The label on it said 'good for shovelling material.' clearly the person in charge of labelling had run out of ideas that day.

Second I considered the no-dig technique. This is more complicated than it sounds - it's described all over the web, so I won't repeat it here, if you're interested there are several good articles on Charles Dowding's website. I've discounted using the full version of this technique, mainly because of the huge volume of compost that seems to be needed for it to be really effective, but also because I'm not convinced that it's the best answer for my soil. I think, on reflection, I just haven't been adding enough compost, manure etc to my plot. The amounts described in the no-dig technique are massively higher than I've been using.

Finally, we come to my new friend, pictured above, the Azada, a tool imported from Spain by Get Digging.  The Get Digging website is well worth a look, there are literally hundreds of customer testimonials on there as well as descriptions of the tool itself, as well as lots of other backsaver tools. Intrigued, I ordered a heavy-medium azada a couple of weeks ago and waited anxiously for the snow to melt so I could see if it was all it was cracked up to be. Well. I don't like to speak too soon, but I think this could be what I've been waiting for. It's really easy to use, you chop into the ground with the heavy blade, and lever the soil up with the long handle, no bending required. You have to be quite energetic, but it doesn't put the stress directly on your spine like a spade. Brilliant! I've used it twice now, and so far, quite a lot of digging done and no bad back. I reserve my final judgement until I get the chance to do a bit more with it, but so far, I'm very impressed.

Give me a break!

When digging at the front of my plot I keep thinking 'if only my whole plot had soil like this.' So, as previously discussed here, I decided to move my compost heap away from the front of my plot, in the hope that there would be good soil underneath.  Early signs are good, the soil looks quite crumbly (gardeners say 'friable', not sure why, when 'crumbly' will do). I started with enthusiasm, but I forgot the joys of unearthing buried treasure such as broken glass, rubbish and bricks on a neglected plot. Here is a picture of the giant lump of concrete which seriously slowed my progress with the new bed. Eventually I levered it out with my long shovel, but I can't lift it, so it may have to stay as a 'feature.'

Progress

Progress is being made on my 2010 plans. In the photo below, you can see:
Front right, garlic, planted using a sort of semi 'no dig' method. More on that later. Behind that, new location for the compost heap. Further behind that, the area to be used for more compost, & maybe my storage chest; in front of the shed, I will just lay to grass for now (whilst looking at this area try not to look at John's pristine plot next door. I find it helps to cover one eye). Middle left, you can just see this year's overwintered broad beans, and just in frame on the front left, is the cage for my purple sprouting broccoli, which at the present time is neither purple nor sprouting.