So all the time stretching before me over the Easter Weekend has somehow evaporated and I've only managing to get to the Hill for a single session. Having said that, it is still so incredibly wet underfoot that even running a fork over the beds is backbreaking work, and I suspect does no real good.
Spurred on by Richard-three-plots-down, I have bought seed potatoes this week. He's got all his earlies in, and given it's now April, it's about time I did too, wet or not. In fact their spindly chits don't look great, and I'll let them sit in egg boxes for a week to beef up a bit. What I do have ready to sow is parsnip seed.
I have had the best crop of parsnips EVER this year, so how to replicate that? Perhaps use the same variety and sow at the same time of the year?
You'd think, but no, I have bought Gladiator F1 and not the highly successful Hollow Crown, and I'm sowing them six weeks later than last year too. Not sure what the opposite of learning from experience is, but this is a good example.
Hi Hazel I would recommend no dig for next year. I simply mulched my beds last autumn and the surface is now a beautiful tilth into which I’ve sown beetroot despite heavy rain on my London clay. I simply run a hoe through it to break up any lumps. Also I walk all over it twelve months a year without sinking into it. The flip side is you need to collect composting material throughout the year so you have mulching material in the autumn, Nick.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea, but it only partly works for me (for organisational reasons mainly!). I have crops growing in some beds over winter so I can't mulch and forget about those. But if I have emptied a dalek in autumn (which has a reasonable amount of horse muck added), that works pretty well just with a tickle over in Spring, especially if I'm putting in potatoes.
DeleteBit rough for some of the finer seeds though.
Hi Hazel that’s right. I mulch around crops still growing in the ground in the autumn and it doesn’t seem to bother them. By spring it’s either rotted or incorporated by worms. I look at all the diggers on my allotment site now and they have ‘lumps of concrete’ they still need to break up or worse still are using cultivators to churn up the soil. Off to plants onion sets now after my attempts at growing them from seed for the first time failed miserably. Great to have you back though. You really tell it as it is. Nick
ReplyDeleteI think it might make a difference how heavy your soil is - your London clay will love the compost addition, and be hard work to fork (too heavy when wet, too solid when dry, as you note) so it makes sense to let the worms do the hard work!
DeleteAlso, I have couch grass on a couple of my beds, so I'd be a bit wary of leaving that to run rampant.....