Spring Plantings. Preparing the ground. No dig.

Today I spent a mere three hours out on the allotment. Pretty much working consistently, but with time for fairly leisurely tea breaks. I'd like to share a 'before' and 'after' picture with you.

As regular readers will know, I adopted no-dig techniques about two years ago. We're in our fourth year of the allotment now. There are two basic steps to the no-dig approach.

1.First you need to remove the perennial weeds from the ground (the types of weeds will vary according to the region you live in and the soil conditions). We're talking about things like dandelions - any weeds that come back each year.

2. Once you've completed step one, you need to use a mulch on your piece of ground to prevent weeds returning and most importantly, provide some food for your worms. They need to feel happy, reasonably warm and sheltered - and if you look after them they'll reward you by doing the digging!

Some gardeners and plot-h0lders seem quite sceptical about the no-dig approach. Some people like digging. Can't see the point in it myself. I observed one of my neighbours working very hard 'digging in' the cow manure that they had had delivered today. It seemed to take a long time (at least a few hours). It was really heavy work, unpleasant, smelly and dirty.

As a no-dig gardener, I use manure too. But I don't dig it in. At the top of this post in the 'before' picture you can see one of the areas I prepared for planting today (using no-dig techniques). This particular bed is destined for new potatoes which I shall be chitting soon. I usually plant them out in the soil in early March.

Back at the end of October last year, I started preparing this no-dig bed. There were quite a few weeds on it. Feeling a bit lazy I covered them up with cardboard and placed a thick layer of rabbit manure on top. I'd never tried this before, but basically I hadn't touched the bed since then at all.

Today, I could see that most of the cardboard had been dragged down by worms, and had rotted away. Most of the rabbit manure had been dragged down into the soil too. So instead of digging all I had to do was to 'loosen and lift'. The soil was beautiful, crumbly, not at all waterlogged and even on this fairly cold day in February, jam packed with worms. As I worked I tried not to disturb the soil too much to give the worms a chance to settle down again and carry on doing their job, eating up the rest of the rabbit manure and cardboard and producing worm casts.

My 'loosen and lift' weeding session took me less than an hour. The second picture shows the same area when I had finished. I decided I wasn't going to rake the area over - as I'll be checking briefly again for weeds when I put the potatoes in. You can see how crumbly and well-drained the soil is now.

The no-dig approach meant that I had much more time and energy for other tasks that needed to be done in preparation for Spring. Pulling leeks for example. We've still got masses.

Some are quite small - probably because they went in too late in August - but all of them are untouched by white rot (I feel that is due to the no-dig technique too). Here's a picture of the pile - note the crumbly texture of the soil they are lying on. What a difference four no-dig years have made...to the heavy, water-logged clay soil we started out with.

Garlic Harvest

Do you sometimes have moments when you wonder why on earth you're doing what you're doing?

I've had plenty of those times in the last three years - converting our allotment from derelict. I must have removed at least a hundred bags of broken glass, old pots and other rubbish from the site. Not much fun.

But this weekend has been one of those times when, although it's still hard work, activities on the plot seem to be getting easier and more pleasurable. I've taken up all the garlic and brought it home in my Pashley tricycle. It's a whole year since I bought the tricycle and there's very little maintenance. I asked the bicycle shop to put that green gunge in the tyres and I haven't had a puncture once. That's pretty good going on our allotment site. And as you can see, it is perfect for transporting vegetables.

The bulbs are a really good size and (I think) they smell really good - in fact our whole house smells of fresh garlic. Not a stale and unpleasant smell, but vibrant. That's enough garlic to last us for the whole year and we've given some to neighbours too. Once the bulbs have dried, I sort them through, store the good ones in baskets and use the others as soon as I can.

I like the sound of this garlic soup - especially since we also grow fresh sage on the allotment - but the possibilities are endless really.

Garlic is particularly useful when someone in the family has a cough or cold. I make a simple, instant soup sometimes too - using Marigold organic stock, which comes in a vegan and low-salt version. I just chop one fresh clove of garlic - then put a teaspoon of Marigold into a cup and drop the garlic into it. With a piece of bread it's a great pick-me-up. Then there's garlic bread for barbecues...

This weekend was a big weekend on the plot work-wise. It's Open Day next Saturday and I've agreed to show people round our plot so I'll need to cut the grass too and planted out some clumps of Marigolds which had self-seeded to smarten up the bush tomato beds.

Emptied the old compost heaps and created new ones - our pro-wildlife policy is really kicking in now - lots of different ground beetles which had been breeding in piles of logs I had left around - and in the wood mulch I used for some of the paths (there are a huge number of different ground beetles and many eat slugs, I believe). I've stopped using organic slug pellets altogether now - which is good news on cost grounds too as they're fairly expensive and there are large areas to cover. Our plot has settled down - and with all these wildlife friends we don't seem to need them so much now.

Everywhere you look there are now hundreds of worms - I'm pleased to say the character of our soil has completely changed due to these guys. When I first started tilling the plot, the soil came in huge lumps and it was really difficult if not impossible to get a fine tilth. We've added a huge amount of organic matter now and the soil is much easier to work. I listened to my alter ego 'Gardener's Question Time' yesterday on the radio and Anne Swithenbank seemed to confirm the view that on a heavy clay soil, if you've added lots of organic matter, the soil improves by Year Four.

I emptied out one compost barrel which contained well-rotted rabbit manure. I put half of this on the asparagus bed and used half to create a new strawberry bed using six plants that someone had given us. The well rotted manure was teaming with worms too - I covered it with some porous fabric and cut holes to plant the strawberries through.

Carried on harvesting the new potatoes (Lady Christl) - and planted leeks in those beds. Planted out a couple of Lovage plants (which are good to use for chicken soup, I understand). The Globe Artichoke plants I'd raised at home were ready to go out too.

On the wildlife front, the mini-pond is fine and the big news - next-door-but-one a fellow plot holder has set up his very own honey-bee hive. I went over to say 'hello' to our stripey, furry friends on their very first day. It's all very exciting. I'll post some pictures as soon as I can.

Gardening Resolutions

Having just managed to mortally offend a good friend online, I've come to the probably long overdue conclusion I'm not much good at relationships...

Hope my New Year's Gardening resolutions will fare better. Here are some of them:

• To keep learning (and er...to keep making mistakes)
• To write some mind-blowingly-fantastic and useful gardening blog posts this year(I've already got lots lined up)
• Not to throw any lettuces on the compost heap because I've sown too many
• To enjoy myself

Will post again soon.

Christmas Day Vegetables

After the lights went out around 8.p.m last night due to a fault (no chance of getting anyone out until Boxing Day) and I woke up to a blocked sink I admit Christmas stress started to get to me...

My three year old daughter and her beautiful smile saved the day. Looking at her I feel humbled, she is still totally happy with quite simple things.

Oh and then there's the prospect of fresh organically grown vegetables for Christmas dinner.

What's on the menu?

- A little home grown Giant Winter Spinach.
- Leeks (we have enough to last until February)
- Brussel Sprouts reared in pots
- Fresh Sage for Sage and Onion Stuffing
- Potato Dauphinoise with plenty of home grown garlic from the store

Didn't grow the carrots in the picture, great colour though. Maybe next year.
Enjoy yours and Happy Christmas all.

Don't Dig!

Every autumn on our site I see fellow allotmenteers stumbling up and down the paths, taking a break from their ritual seasonal digging. Usually they're groaning, if not in some sort of physical pain! The question is...

WHY DO THEY DO IT TO THEMSELVES?

Alright, I understand some people LIKE digging. Good luck to them and if they really need the extra exercise, then fine.

But some of the finest organic gardeners like CHARLES DOWDING
http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/ haven't DUG for the past TWENTY FIVE YEARS.

If the NO-DIG approach is good enough for a highly successful organic market gardener like Charles, then it's good enough for me!

Here's how I went about establishing my own no-dig system in brief:

STEP ONE
Using a LOOSEN and LIFT system I removed all the perennial weeds I could find (things like dandelions, nettles and thistles) with a fork.

STEP TWO
I don't intend to DIG OVER my plot ever again now that the majority of these weeds are out. All the evidence I've found (including my own practical experience) tells me that digging can actually INCREASE the rate at which weeds regrow, and it can actually DAMAGE rather than IMPROVE the soil structure. So I now use mulching to keep the weeds down. (I'll come back to this one)

As you can see from previous posts - I'm raising my own plug plants at home to plant out, so I rarely need the 'fine tilth' that mainstream gardening books often speak about. (When the small plants are planted out, they are generally sturdy enough to copy with larger soil particles). In the main I would spend the time having a break - sitting on my deck chair and letting the WORMS do the hard work.

To those who remain sceptics I'd say - spend some time with Charles Dowding's site http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/. Don't knock it until you've tried it and you could save yourself a lot of time and trouble!

Crop Rotation for beginners

Firstly thank you all - my readership for staying with this blog while it develops. I really appreciate it - and all the lovely (and critically encouraging) comments I've received so far - face-to-face and by email. I was honestly really heartened to see that more and more people are following this. Cheers.

Here's a photo of our half plot, which was taken last week. I've called this post 'Crop Rotation for Beginners'. I'm not sure that covers it, but we have to start somewhere, don't we?

It's a bit of a scruffy picture - but if you look carefully it reveals quite a few labour and cost saving techniques which may be useful to you on your own patch.

A year ago, this square plot was covered in nettles, brambles and bindweed. Using the black plastic techniques described in the post 'Reclaiming a derelict allotment' I prepared it for planting. As you can see it is now divided into seven fairly rough looking beds with a path in the middle made of cardboard with wood chip on top.

We are not the 'Ideal Homes' exhibition, so although I like pretty gardens - I also like things that work. Keeping our eye on the ball here - our main goal is easy and reasonably priced organically grown produce - not keeping up with the Joneses. If you're taking your vegetables home though, don't forget to put the largest and loveliest ones on the top of your basket!

A path like this is quick and cheap to make because the cardboard comes free with a parcel, and every now and then someone deposits wood chip on our allotment site which we don't have to pay for. The path usually only lasts a season, but I find this is okay as it is early days for this half plot, and I don't want beds that are set in stone, as I may decide to make them larger or smaller according to our needs at a later date. I also want to observe and learn from the soil and the weather as I go along. Partly in the interests of general efficiency but also because it calms the mind.

Looking at the picture - starting in the far left hand corner and moving around the plot in a clockwise direction we currently have a bed of leeks, followed by garlic planted in October, autumn planted onions just sprouting and still covered in netting to keep the birds off, more leeks, an empty bed ready for planting, garlic, and more leeks.

This square plot also has a Comfrey bed at the edge (out of the picture on the right) and if you look carefully you can see that it is edged by small bushes which are Cherry Plums (I'll come back both the Cherry Plums and the Comfrey in later posts). Now these are pretty (or they will be when they flower in February).

The beds are very simply constructed. They are nothing more than mounds of earth with sloping sides. If you have a large area to deal with (we have one whole plot and a half plot), or your budget doesn't stretch to timber or reconstituted plastic raised beds, making them like this is a good option. The leeks have grown really well so far. You can see a few weeds around them, I did hand weed them a bit when they were smaller but when the cold weather set in, I didn't really bother and it doesn't seem to have done them much damage.

Of course there's a lot to say about crop rotation - we'll touch on this again or you can read more about it in some of the books I've mentioned. Basically though it means not planting things in the same place season after season and year after year.

So as far as this square plot is concerned, I will have to think through exactly which crops I am going to plant in the seven beds in the picture once the existing crops are taken out and eaten.

I would imagine we will have finished off all the leeks by the end of February, so I will need to have seedlings ready in my plug planters to plant out in the leek beds by March(ish). Right.

I don't know yet what these are going to be yet (something to think about on those cold winter nights by the fire). I might have to go back to my seed organiser board - have a look what I've got and maybe order some new ones. If I'm following a good crop rotation system though, I'll bear one thing in mind:

Most of the crops currently growing on this half plot belong to the onion (Allium) family so whatever comes after this should be a member of a different plant family, potatoes for example (which, along with tomatoes belong to the Solanceae family).

Why go to all this trouble? It makes sense to me now to move crops around. You remember the slight touch of leek rust that I told you about last month? As I found out it is a fungal disease, and if I grew leeks (or onions) or other crops in that plant family in the same place all the time, it is fairly likely that this particular disease would gain more of a hold in the soil. So instead I understand it is better to ring the changes and put other crops in that are not susceptible to this particular thing. Simple.

The No Work Garden

There are thousands of (expensive) books out there about gardening - and quite a few about organic fruit and vegetable growing. Confusing isn't it?

During the weeks up to Christmas, I'm going to tell you what I think about just NINE of them. That means only the ones I've found:

1. Really useful during the last two and half years OR
2. Hugely entertaining (and suitable for Christmas gifts?)and/or
3. Good enough to spend my own money on!

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE COMPLETE LIST : http://astore.amazon.co.uk/quesgardtime-21

(BOOK NUMBER ONE) is Bob Flowerdew's 'The No Work Garden':

Bob has a few books out there. This one does exactly what it says on the tin, he tells us 'how to get the most out of our garden with the least amount of work'.

I most valued the way he dismantles some of the conventional myths you hear about gardening, in particular about autumn digging. Alright we know that some people like it. We also know that you need to get your perennial weeds out and compost them carefully. But once that is done, you can really start the transition to a no dig approach, save your back and work more efficiently.

'Keep your eye on the ball' Bob says. 'If you want tasty veg, but your neighbour grows prize winning specimens, don't be distracted.'

There's more information and reviews on the Amazon store link. Yes, you're right - it is advertising and I do earn a small commission if you buy there.

I'm working for free right now - most bloggers know how long it takes to get a successful blog up and running. So if you like 'Questioners Garden Time' and plan to buy one of these books, support me and buy it via the link!

Alternatively, drop a heavy gift hint with your loved ones or ask for it at your local library:

CLICK ON COMMENTS TO LET ME KNOW YOUR VIEWS AND IF YOU LIKE THIS BLOG - TELL YOUR FRIENDS!