Feed your compost

 feed small bits of cardboard every week to your compost bin and

 hundreds of worms will make a bee-line for your compost enriching your soil no end.

The reason: worms are mad about the glue in the carboard

Floods

 My allotment has now been under water for six weeks..........I can do nothing other then wait for Old Father Thames to go back to his bed and when that happens I will have to loosen up my compressed soil.

What I want to know is: Where do moles go when it floods>

Dig a potato trench:

What I do this time of year is, dig  a potato trench for your March plantings.

Dig a trench 20–30 cm (8–12 ins deep) and a spade’s blade in width.

Line the trench  with cardboard and newspaper, fill with vegetable peelings, covering with soil (to stop rats) as the layers are added.

By planting time,(Good Friday) this will have reduced well and will help the soil to retain water over the growing season.

Well worth the effect, come a dry summer! 

What to do after a garden flood

If you have had floods on your plot ( as I have ) before you do anything on your plot, make sure you have a tetanus shot.

 It’s not even a painful jab but tetanus can kill you and goodness knows what is in the soil after a flood.

So check it out!

Winter Solstice

 The 21st is the shortest day of the year. Called the Winter Solstice. It is an important day in the growing calendar, the days will be getting longer from now on, more light and soon enough spring will be here. For now we’ve winter to get through but that’s a chance to rest and recover.

Happy Christ

Asian Hornets

 Asian hornets, Vespa velutina, have spread across Europe and are now in the UK. Their main threat is too honey bees. Our help forum administrator ‘Aunt Sally’ has produced this Asian Hornet advice guide to raise awareness and give advice about They are know to be a dangerous, invasive pest that have killed people all over Europe. Do not poke their nest.

Asian hornets are thought to have arrived in Bordeaux, France from China in a container of pottery in 2005. They quickly spread across France and into continental Europe. Reported in Spain in 2010, Belgium in 2011, Germany in 2014the Channel Isles in 2016 and were first spotted in the UK in late 2016.

Gloucestershire, Somerset, Devon, Dorset, Lancashire, Cornwall, Hull, Hampshire, Surrey, Kent, Suffolk and Staffordshire have all had sightings of Asian hornets.

Once established their growth rate is exponential. If allowed to establish they will be near impossible to eradicate in the UK

Report sightings to: https://www.bbka.org.uk/news/beekeepers-call-on-the-public-to-help-fight-record-asian-hornet-invasion

The place where you might find them is in corners of your shed or in boxes or any where you might find wasp. 

Pigeons

 Winter has come, at last.

It is good to have some months doing what they should be doing.

-7 here in Oxfordshire.

From last year , when we had -10 , I have learnt that Pigeons can wipe out Kale overnight.

So, for this year I have covered everything with netting and the Pigeons have gone else where.

Mare's Tail

 

Quick facts

Common name: Horsetail, mare’s tail 
Areas affected: Will grow anywhere, even up through concrete
Main causes: May establish from spores, but usually arrives via rhizomes from neighbouring gardens, 
Timing: Seen in spring and summer; treat when every and where ever you see it.

I had lots of this on my allotment when I started 13 years ago, however there is very little on my plot now.

I just cut it off at ground level when ever and where every I saw it. 

Weeds

 My Grandad used to say "‘one years seeding is seven years weeding’, and how true that is.

Weeds are part of growing and as such must be dealt with a plan.

All  annual weeds  will spread thousands of seeds  into  the ground to await the right  conditions . Digging the the soil brings seeds from deep down and up to  the surface to grow.

Luckily, most of these annual weeds are pretty easy to deal with. Just hoe through them, leave them to dry or collect them for the compost heap. Catching them young is most effective – better to hoe little and often .

There are r weeds that are a bigger challenge. The Perennial and  it can live for years and  years.I just keep hoping them and digging them up where I can 

Brussels sprouts

 

A tip on how to grow good  Brussels Sprouts.

Make sure your plants are firm in the ground.

Stake them to avoid them blowing over

 

Feed the plant every month ( even in winter ) because they are big feeders.

Real bad pest

 My neighbour, is leaning to play the bag pipes on his allotment and it is driving me mad.

Any body know how to get rid of such a pest?

Bonfire Ash

 If you have had a bonfire last weekend,

 do collect the ashes and keep them dry for use in the spring. 

Ash is a  valuable source of potash fertiliser which many plants find useful  especially tomatoes and fruit trees.

Plant Flowers

 I was born in London during the battle of El Alamein in North Africa, 81 years ago..........We are still bombing each other 81 years on!

We need to plant more flowers.

Flooding

 Nothing happening on my plot, at the moment, because of flooding from the river Thames.

It has been like this for four weeks now, only good thing about it is that the rats have drown. 

Chitting

 

Potato Chitting & Planting 

 I have just got my potatoes chitting out of direct sunlight and in a cool  place and  frost free.

In  the UK  the  time to plant potatoes is Good Friday. I know that is a moveable feast. 

This year Good Friday is the 7th April, however, what ever date it is I also stick to the day and I have never had a bad crop.  

 A lot of people wait till they have to cut their grass, that also works That way you know the temperatures are high enough. It is a good idea to throw the grass clippings over the rows and use it as a sort of mulch. 

If there is frost and you have leafs showing, throw a fleece over the rows. 

Avoid Buying Kale

 Try not to buy you kale from the shops because it is one of the most sprayed crops that is grown here in the UK.

Much safer to grow your own, because you will know what it contains.

Now is one of the times that I sow my kale, the other time of the year is end of July, doing so will ensure that you have your own crop the whole year through.

Not Yet

 It is cold, it is wet, it is dry and warm........such is the weather here in Oxford this past month.

So the result of that is to sit back and wait for the ground to warm up a bit.

I do have a few seedlings on the go, things like: kale, spinach, cabbage, however, I am not one to run out and plant at the first raise of the sun. I wait till the hedgerows green up.

I am enjoying my Rhubarb, which is romping away!

What is good manure?

 

What is ‘Well rotted manure’? 

The question is: What is good manure?

The answer Is: 

 Initially manure will smell like manure and obviously have straw or other bedding material in it.

When it is well rotted, composted in other words, it should not smell of manure. The straw should have gone and generally it just looks like dark, rich soil.

Cover your soil:

  I use raised beds are ideal  for  the ‘no dig’ system. 

Make the beds wide enough for you to reach across so that you do not have to walk on them. 

Also  make them high enough that you do not have to bend down to far.

Raised beds are  a win-win situation for the’ no dig ‘method 

I cover my empty beds ( I have 19 of them ) with  thick grey sheets of plastic.

Doing so, helps keep the weeds down, by not letting weed seeds that are blown about by the winter winds settle on the beds. Hopefully making them be weed-free when it is time to plant in spring. 

The inorganic winter covers work best for raised beds because the soil beneath the covers  does not get rained on and are keep warmer because they are not open to deep frost of winter.

Organic Matter

 Organic Matter ( Farm yard Manure )

I dig organic matter into my beds every three years.

I do this because:

 

Organic matter provides nutrients for plants and other organisms in soil. 

Organic matter also acts like a sponge, with the ability to hold water. 

Soil with good structure needs input of additional organic matter.

Digging increases oxygen into the soil, which will 

Speed up the breakdown of organic matter making it more available to the crop.