No Dig Gardening

Allotment News ~ Late June Edition

Lately, between showers, I’ve been enjoying the company of birds on my allotment plots. First there’s been the pheasant family – Mr and Mrs and a single puff-ball chick. The adults make soft puck-pucking calls to each other as they wander up and down the weedier areas beyond my borders. I suspect they may also have been nibbling the celeriac seedlings which I’m not so pleased about. More recently I’ve been pursued by robins and hungry blackbirds. They have been most excited by my turning of several compost heaps. One blackbird in particular is adept at filling her beak, five worms at a go, dangling down like a mouth full of ribbons. The robins just nag, moving in at ever closer quarters, and piping up whenever I look like flagging on the heap turning front.

And talking of heap turning, in my last update on plot doings I was feeling a bit despondent over plans to adopt no-dig gardening methods. I realised I would need a phenomenal amount of compost. I think I’m talking tonnes here. (The main principle of no-dig being that you cover all the growing areas with several inches of compost every autumn so you don’t need to dig in spring and thereby upset the balance of soil micro-organisms which create fertility. It also cuts down on weeding and watering). Anyway, I can now report some success, at least in a small way.

Back in March I was inspired by TV gardener Monty Don to try growing new potatoes in a raised bed. I had one ready, with its autumn compost topcoat well applied, so I thought, why not? In went my twelve Pentland Javelin earlies, set out in a grid formation. I simply popped them into the compost layers, placing them around 40 cms/15 inches apart. I then buried the lot in several inches of compost, and covered the bed with horticultural fleece. Later, once they’d started sprouting, I earthed them up with more compost (which accounts for why I found myself short of the stuff later). A fortnight ago, once flowering was over, I pulled up the first plant to see what was going on. And here’s the result (cue fanfare):

And coming up next is the raised bed where the rest of the plants are still going strong. I used 2 plastic raised beds (2 x 1 metres) bought from a departing neighbour a couple of seasons ago, each a hand’s span tall, and placed one on top of the other to create enough depth to contain the earthing up compost. The end result of this is: no weeds and no need for digging up. When it comes to harvesting I simply pull up the plants and have a quick scrabble around in the compost like a lucky dip. Also, I’d fully expected slug damage after all the wet weather, but so far there’s none to be seen. In fact these are the best first early spuds I’ve ever grown – in looks, taste, ease of extraction and quantity per plant. And, I repeat: no weeds!

Once the spuds are lifted, I’m planning to use the empty bed for winter sprouting broccoli and kale.

And so, with all this vegetable encouragement, and a break in the rainy season, it’s back to the compost bins and bays and my demanding avian companions. More waste gathering and turning are definitely required. I’m thinking now that no-dig can work, even on my claggy Silurian soil – albeit one raised bed at time and with mega quantities of compost. In the meantime, here’s Mrs Pheasant, a view of a scarcely visible chick, and a bee in the nigella:

Coming Home From The Allotment ~ The Priory Ruins At Sunset

Lately heavy labouring on the Farrell allotment plots has been taking precedence over blogging. Tasks have included sowing, weeding, mulching, path mowing, plot edging, erecting pea and bean sticks, planting out the broad bean seedlings (long pod, crimson flowered and the Sutton varieties), beetroot (golden, boltardy and cylindrical), cauliflower, broccoli and pea seedlings.

I have also recycled several builder’s pallets (rescued from the communal bonfire heap) to make two new compost bins, and to extend an existing one into a double-bay effort. And I have been gathering comfrey, grass cuttings, shredded cardboard, household peelings and whatever greenery I can crop from neighbours’ neglected plots to feed the bins. I am aiming for mega-quantities of compost come the autumn so I can give all the raised beds a deep protective layer that will hopefully prevent the soil from turning into concrete over the winter, which is what happened to any exposed surface this year.

In the polytunnel over-wintered lambs lettuce, Chinese mustards, leeks, Russian and Tuscan kale are being eaten and/or cleared to make way for the tomatoes, peppers and the single cucumber plant that I managed to germinate. All in all, it feels like a gardening marathon, but doubtless it will (mostly) be worth it. And one good thing about being up at the allotment at this time of year is the chance of taking sunset photographs of the town on the way home.

First though evidence of the labours:

And now we’ve got the gardening done, more early evening shots around town as I head home; views from south through east to north-east:

Daily Post: Place in the World

Out In The Field With Runaway Crocus

Several things spurred me to the allotment on Saturday – sun, dryness under foot, onion sets in the post, and the need to get a 2” covering of compost onto the raised beds as per the ‘no dig’ methodology, a job I had forgotten to do in the autumn.

For once the field path was not all of a slither, and along the way I found these crocus (tiny in real life). Clearly they had grown bored with the confining domesticity of suburban flower beds, and so taken off over the garden hedges to try things on the wild side.

Breaking bounds with a flourish – one could learn a few things here…

Cee’s Flower Of The Day

The Changing Seasons ~ Snow and Marigolds In January

Well, it’s hardly been gardening weather – far too wet; not at all like our good old winters where on fine, cold days you could pile on the gardening togs, balaclava and all, get out your trusty spade and dig the allotment, naturally always standing on a plank as you went so as not to compact the soil.

I actually like digging, though I’m trying to wean myself off the practice (as many of you who come here will know) opting instead for the no-dig approach which relies on raised beds and the annual autumn application of compost. Around 2 inches worth says no-dig guru, Charles Dowding, and only on the surface (he has lots of useful videos on You Tube and grows parsnips and carrots the size of cruise missiles).

The only problem with this approach is you need loads and loads of compost, and despite my having a dozen assorted piles, bins and bays of decomposing garden waste, I never seem to have enough garden-ready stuff at the right time. I also completely forgot about the autumn application as I had left my brain in the olive groves of Kalamata back in October. Drat! However, it did return briefly in December to remember to gather leaves for making leaf mould, and it’s probably not too late to go out and gather more if only it weren’t raining, and Wenlock’s likely byways a sea of slithery Silurian mud.

We also had more snow in January, but not the glistening, Snow-Queeny landscapes of December, but the dank and dreary sort followed by more rain, which soon washed it away. Except that when I went up to the allotment on Monday I was surprised to find heaps of it lurking along the sides of the polytunnels. Oh no! I remembered the old wives’ tale which says that when snow remains we can expect further falls to carry it away. Hmph. A curse on old wives for being so doomy. We’ve done snow. Now we want spring!

But then the odd thing about that is, along with our snow and frost we have also had spring, or at least if the pot marigolds are anything to go by. These are self-seeded annuals that grow hither and thither around my plot, and not even being buried for a week under December’s snow drifts stopped them flowering. When the snow receded they emerged full-on, like floral headlights, though their stems were somewhat misshapen from the burying. As anyone would be.

Anyway, here are some views of the allotment taken on Monday. I’m including some of my compost heaps – not a pretty sight, I know, but they bring joy to this gardener’s heart. Also of my parsnips, which as you will see were exceedingly hard to extract from the mud. They are also nowhere near the size of Charles Dowding’s cruise missiles, nor as perfectly formed. But then as the shed-building man who lives in my house says, who needs parsnips that big? A vaguely existentialist enquiry to which I find there is no answer…

The Changing Seasons

For those who haven’t caught up yet, Su Leslie is now our very excellent host for The Changing Seasons monthly challenge, having taken over from our former very excellent host Max at Cardinal Guzman (btw fantastic ski-ing video at Max’s blog). We have thus shifted across the globe from Norway to New Zealand. Please pop over to Su’s place to see her and other bloggers’ monthly round up from their corners of the world. And please join in. The ‘rules’ are simple.

February’s Changing Seasons ~ Shots From The Plot

Way-hay – it’s spring, or so it seems, and now I feel I need to garden on the run in order to catch up. Much earth moving must be done at the allotment – all the jobs it was too wet to do in the autumn. All the jobs that it’s still to wet to do now. But at least the temperatures are kinder.

And the light is so promising. I’m celebrating that fact in the re-composed top shot of an allotment sunset, captured through the neighbouring hedgerow.

In fact every day now you can see the over-wintered plant life responding as light levels and temperatures rise: purple sprouting sprouting, cauliflowers hatching inside their leaf-folds, chives shooting, rhubarb unfurling, spinach expanding. Then there are carrots to pull from their bucket in the polytunnel, and Chinese mustard and Russian Kale; the autumn sown lettuce are starting to fill out.

Meanwhile inside the polytunnel a big makeover is also afoot. He-who-makes-raised-beds-out-of-old-pallets has been dragooned into commissioned to reorganise the planting zones. Instead of wide beds along each side and a path up the middle, the plan is to have one continuous narrow but deep bed on one side, a narrow raised bed down the centre for tomatoes, and three separate raised beds down the far side.

After two days slog establishing the first and second phases, HWMRBOOOP heroically informs me that the stage 3 separate beds are now ready, flat-pack style, for the final part of the installation. The only problem is that it is now windy and raining and we don’t feel like leaving the house. Also this last part of operations will require shifting tons of soil from the old side bed into the new beds, and there’s only so much heaving and hauling one can do in a week.

I’ve already shunted and prepared the soil in polytunnel beds 1 and 2, turned over three big squidgy compost heaps (my compost making technique leaves a lot to be desired), sifted out enough usable stuff to cover several outdoor beds, while starting a new heap with all the stuff that needs to go round again. I have another six heaps to deal with.

At the moment I have one and half allotment plots, but I’m aiming to dispense with the top half of my oldest plot this March when the rents are due. Ultimately, I’d like to retreat altogether to my polytunnel half plot, by which time I should have a fully functioning NO DIG raised bed/terrace system. The theory is that since this system will be more manageable and productive, a half plot should be more than sufficient for our needs. However, as I’ve mentioned several times in other posts, this approach does rely on making loads of compost every year, and that takes up space. Anyway, one step at a time.

And in between compost turning, moving the gooseberry bush, and pruning the autumn raspberries, there is always time to take a few photos. So here follows a gallery of shots from the February allotment, one of which makes me realise that my polytunnel now also needs a good wash. Heavens to Betsy – is there no end to the gardener’s toil:

To take part in the monthly Changing Seasons challenge please visit Max aka Cardinal Guzman.

Eminently Edible Or Too Much Like Hard Work: Plexit or Brexit Up At The Allotment?

Some people – otherwise known as Graham – think I have secret ambitions to take over the whole of Wenlock’s Southfield Road allotment. He couldn’t be more wrong, although whenever I protest my intention to contract operations and reduce my current domain of one and half plots to a single half plot with polytunnel attached, he gives me that look. Oh yeah? The problem is, just like Britain leaving Europe, my exit strategy is complicated. But unlike Brexit, at least I do have a strategy for reducing my plot occupation. Indeed in this era of foolish contraction we could even call it Plexit.

The story of my initial expansionist tendency begins nine years ago, not long after we moved to Wenlock. I had known the town for much of my life, and lived for a long time in a neighbouring parish, but I had not known that the town had an allotment. It is well hidden behind a row of houses, a relic of much earlier times when a railway ran by our neck of the Edge, and railway workers had the right to demand that their company provide, along with their houses, some sizable garden plots on which to grow their own food.

It was a chance remark at a neighbour’s Christmas party that made me realize that the shed roofs that I could just see across the field from our new home were not in a row of private gardens as I had first thought. The hunt for a plot was on. When I finally tracked down the chairman of the Wenlock Allotment Society it was March, and I was champing at the get-gardening bit since our cottage garden was not big enough for vegetable growing. Though charming, the chairman told me all the plots were taken, and he would add me to the waiting list that already had several people on it. He did not sound hopeful, and disappointment descended. Yet by April he was on the phone saying that I clearly had a fairy godmother: my pumpkin dreams had come home to roost. Several plots had been unexpectedly surrendered, and there was a half plot left if I still wanted it. The rent was £20 per annum. So I said yes, site unseen, and we arranged for a convenient moment a few days later when he might introduce me to my new land holding and collect the rent.

Thus began allotment my life – with an inherited leaning shed, an ancient greengage tree just then in bloom, and a plot full of couch grass, sow thistle, docks, dandelions and buttercups that the previous incumbent had clearly been nurturing for some considerable time.

And that’s the problem with allotments. Too many would-be cultivators take them on only to find themselves overtaken by the amount of labour involved. Yet the idea of allotment growing remains beguiling, and so time passes as they decide whether or not to abandon the plot. The upshot of this is that everyone gets the fall-out from the weeds on neglected plots. Also the general tendency to disorder that breaks out in such communal enterprises provides havens and harbourage for pests and diseases that then become endemic. It takes much gritting of teeth not to resort to a host of chemical applications.

The upside of allotments is of course the camaraderie – the like-minded people who will be there to commiserate over one’s sorrow at slug and allium weevil devastation, or to swap ideas for pest control, share the joy of success and in the ensuing excesses in crops, or generally to keep an eye on neighbours’ plots while they are away. All good stuff.

Also when I first started, there was one old gardener still hard at work. Crook-backed, and slightly crippled, he travelled by bus from another village. This also involved him in quite an uphill hike from the bus stop which he could only accomplish very slowly, and with a few stops for a cigarette. But once on the allotment he tended three full 20 by 5 metre plots on behalf of other elderly tenants or their widows who lived on Southfield Road. He was there most days too, and I think he had probably been there for centuries. He gardened in the way my grandfather would have done.

Often in the winter, when we still had a few really cold ones, we would be the only people there, and I would take the opportunity to quiz him over his tried and tested methodologies. I especially took note of when he sowed particular crops. His repertoire was limited, but he grew in bulk: broad beans, runner beans, beetroot, onions and potatoes. I don’t remember his growing much else. He knew what worked best, and he knew those crops that were within his capacities to manage on such a scale.

And that’s another big lesson to be learned at the allotment. When you have your first plot – which can seem so large and roomy – and you have finally cleared all the weeds, it’s too easy to assume that anything will grow there. It won’t . Not unless you have been lucky to take on a well worked, and hugely well composted and sheltered site. It took me a while to learn that it’s best to start by taking a good look at what the seasoned growers are growing; see what thrives in the face of endemic pests, the plot’s micro-climate, the general environmental conditions, and soil structure limitations. That way you can be sure to get one or two decent crops of something, and these successes will keep you going while you get to grips with your plot’s potential and/or deficiencies.

For instance another experienced allotmenteer showed us newbies that the only way to grow decent carrots and parsnips on our heavy soil was to dib individual root shaped holes at sowing time, fill them with good compost and then sow the seeds on top. It’s a rather time-consuming process but worth it if you don’t want to waste packets of seed. For carrots it also reduces the need for a lot of thinning, and the plants can be left to grow throughout the season covered by horticultural fleece, so avoiding attacks by carrot root fly. I have now adapted this idea by using moveable raised bed, which Graham originally made for me as a cold frame. I place it on top of the existing soil level. Fill it with a good six inches of fine compost mixed with coir fibre and sow into that, and then cover the lot with enviromesh.

In those first years it was tough going. I thought I was a moderately experienced gardener, but there was much unforeseen trial and error. The plot took monumental amounts of clearing, digging, and composting. Crop successes were patchy, apart from colossal amounts of black currants and broad beans. The heavy soil proved almost impossible for sowing anything other large seeded vegetables, and even then there was a tendency for them to rot if we had a spell of cold, wet weather. Or if they germinated, the roots became compacted and the plants effectively bonsai-ed themselves, and then got eaten by slugs or infested with aphids.

All the time I was casting covetous eyes on the other half of the plot. It had clearly been well cultivated over the years, and the soil looked lighter and much more promising. I saw it produce masses of strawberries and fine looking French and runner beans. It was also nearer the water point, a serious consideration given our erratic weather patterns which often involve a spring or summer drought. I watched two other gardeners come and go there before finally making my bid for it. At last. Now I could grow decent potatoes, strawberries, runners beans, leeks, carrots, and leave the old plot to produce what it did best – raspberries, blackcurrants, rhubarb, artichokes, and swathes of very useful comfrey for feeding the rest of the plot.

The half plot I began with nine years ago, this year growing cover crops of field beans. I should perhaps have dug some of them in before they flowered – this as a green manure. But I didn’t, and the blossom kept the bees very happy. And now I have tons of mini broad beans – to eat, and to dry for autumn sowing.

So now I had 70 feet of plot, and I had only just begun to get the measure of it when I rather recklessly found myself with a further half plot. This was two years ago. I was so fixated on taking over the polytunnel that Bob and Sally had erected there the previous season that I neglected to notice that it stood on an especially wide piece of ground that had once been the domain of the aforesaid aged gardener, and thus long neglected. And so quite apart from learning the new art of polytunnel cultivation, it was back to tackling another dense carpet of dandelions, buttercups and couch grass.

Even I could see the daft side. He who disbelieves in Plexit (that would be Graham), simply raised his eyebrows and saw (as with Napoleon’s invasion of Moscow) only evidence of wilful territorial overreach. ‘You’ve taken on too much,’ the look said.

‘But I have a plan,’ I said. ‘I mean to contract. It’s my ultimate objective.’

More raised brows.

‘It’s raised beds that I really need,’ I said. ‘Then I can start the retreat from the old plot.’

Being the kind soul he is, Graham agreed to making me some beds, though leaving me with the distinct impression that he was humouring a mad woman.

Last year then, and before I’d discovered ‘no dig gardening’ approach (see earlier post HERE), I started clearing the new plot, basically by skimming several inches of weedy compacted ground off the top and dumping it in compost bins where it might just rot down by the end of the century. I covered the bare ground with the limited amount of compost I had available, sowed some trefoil for a green manure and inter-planted it with sweet corn, which to my surprise grew a magnificent crop of large cobs. I also planted out brassicas next to the corn and produced some rather fine purple cauliflowers, which also surprised me. Meanwhile Graham set about on the first consignment of raised beds, made from recycled pallets which he picked up for free from work.

The new plot in early spring this year. Beds provided by Plexit sceptic, and planted with over-wintering onions, lamb’s lettuce and winter purslane. Behind the polytunnel the open bed has not been dug apart from some spot-weeding of dandelions, but covered with six inches of recycled soil from the allotment’s communal heap of ages (see next photo). It has been planted with Early Onward peas (just being harvested this week. See second photo above). These were pre-grown in 4 inch pots, five or so seeds to a pot, to avoid mouse devastation. I find that transplanted peas do really well, although it’s a bit of a faff having loads of pots. They also need to be well defended from pigeons as soon as they are planted out.

This heap was apparently some 40 years in the making. At the end of the winter, before some of us began to recycle it, it extended beyond the weeds on the right, and was 6 or 7 feet high. I suspect I have moved around 100 barrow loads. Unavoidably, given that the allotment is a weed haven, the soil is filled with weed seeds, but at least it is lighter and more free draining, and gives crops a chance to get going. So far the crops in the new raised beds, or on areas where I’ve not dug, but covered the soil with several inches of stuff from my own compost heaps, are far superior to anything grown on existing dug-over soil. And while no-dig proponents claim that this method means fewer weeds, I don’t think this holds for a very weedy allotment, but at least perennials like dandelion and nettle are easier to remove from lighter soil.

This year’s Lark sweet corn, growing next to the peas on a no-dig plot.

Nautica French beans in a raised bed on recycled compost heap soil. So far so good, though a few nettle seedlings popping up.

And now for Plexit, and my plan for plot downsizing.

Ideally in terms of work load it would have been better if I had already relinquished the half plot I first started with nine years ago – along with the leaning shed and the greengage tree that only fruits every nine years. Despite all my compost input, pony poo additions and green manure growing, the ground is still the least promising. The only remedy would be to cover it with the rest of the communal soil heap, but then I reckon that (along with effort needed to move it) it would be far better deployed on the new plot where I’ve just started making a no-dig experimental bed by covering the weedy, long uncultivated ground with cardboard and six inch layer of soil, and then sowing it with cover crops – fenugreek and phaecelia. I’ve no idea how this will turn out. It’s also adjacent to my other experimental section of cardboard covered by 6 inches of tree shreddings – another unknown quantity with regard to next year’s cultivation potential.

But the main block to immediate downsizing is the fact that the much loved raspberry patch is at the top of the old plot, and I can’t give it up until I’ve got a new bed going. The present one keeps us in fruit the year round, so can’t be surrendered lightly. I started a new bed behind the polytunnel last winter, but the canes are being very slow to get going, and I may need to replace some of them – all of which will put Prexit on hold.

Nor am I keen to give up the bottom half of the old plot just yet because it’s doing rather well, and I also have my three massive compost heaps there, and several leaf mould silos. And anyway it provides plenty of room for potatoes and winter veg. And then well…

In the end I suppose it’s more than obvious. The Prexit sceptic has a point: I won’t be yielding territory any time soon. But then that’s my point. I’m busy negotiating, doing essential groundwork, ensuring that what I give up will be in reasonable shape when I do so. Only when conditions are the best they can be, or I’ve run out of steam, will I start the retreat. Makes you wonder about Brexit, doesn’t it?

In the meantime, if don’t have a garden…

Lots of vegetables grow well in containers – leeks, garlic, carrots, spinach, salad stuff, tomatoes. A bucket with a few holes in the bottom makes an easily portable garden.

This month Jude at The Earth Laughs In Flowers wants to see photos of the edible garden. Visit her to find out more and see her splendid allotment gallery.

The Power Of Green And Dappled Sunlight This Morning On The Linden Walk

You can almost see the sap rising – gushing forth in fact to catch up after a slow-start spring. Anyway, walking amongst it this morning made the pursuit of allotment chores a complete and utter pleasure.

The chore in question is part of my on-going experiments with no-dig cultivation. So armed with my big green polypropylene bag I was out gathering up some of the piles of tree shreddings left around the Linden Field by the chap who comes to trim the lime trees’ overgrowth. I then haul them up to the allotment where I am covering a 6 feet wide x 20 feet section of uncleared plot with cardboard plus several inches of chippings on top. It’s rather a slow process, but I’m over half way there.

I’m hoping that by the time I get round to cultivating this section next year, most of the worst weeds will have turned up their roots, and the mulch rotted down enough to produce a reasonable planting medium. Oh yes, and that in order to achieve all this both the cardboard and the mulch will have attracted a lot of very happy worms.

The thing is, though, once I’m out on the Linden Walk it is so easy to forget about heavy labouring, and slip into a complete green daze. And as you can see, I also had my camera with me. I was particularly taken by this fence post:

And then at the end of the avenue near one of my target chippings piles, I noticed a nice flat area between the limes and the old railway line. I had not spotted it before, but it looked just the place for some qi gong. Secluded enough, I thought, not to frighten any of the Wenlock dog walkers who might otherwise come upon me in the midst of repulsing the monkey or being a wild goose flying. So this is where I stood – beneath a canopy of limes and sycamores, accompanied by bird call and the soft flutter of pigeon wings. Aaaaah. Wishing you a similarly blissful, green-filled, sap-rising, sun-dappled day.

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Now please pop over to Jo’s Monday Walk for a truly inspiring excursion in beautiful rural Poland. And to add your own walks to Jo’s go HERE.

Trying Not To Dig The Plot And 30 Minutes Of Weird Weather

On a very dull Tuesday afternoon I thought I’d brave the cold wind and walk across the field to the allotment. On went the woolly hat, quilted coat (over three layers) and the wellies.

Unsurprisingly I had the allotment to myself – not another mad gardener in sight. I set about emptying one of the compost bins, and spreading the contents (a hand’s width deep) over a metre wide stretch of ground that had been cleared of over-wintering sprouts and broccoli. It seemed a good day to do it, and I was glad I had prised myself from the house.

This year I’m experimenting with the ‘no dig’ system of cultivation, so apart from tweaking out one or two noxious weeds, I resisted the temptation to get out my favourite spade. The objective is to cover the soil with enough interesting organic matter to excite the worms in the soil below. They then do the digging, and other soil-friendly organisms get going too so that, hopefully, the later seasons’ crops – cabbages and sweet corn – can be planted out on the much improved, and better nourished ground.

I was thus in the middle of this very absorbing activity when someone upstairs switched off the lights and I turned to find a tempest sneaking up on me.

Yikes! By the time I had scooted across the plot to the shelter of my polytunnel, we were having a small, but very concentrated snow and hail blizzard. It was far too stormy to think of making for home. Instead, I pottered about in my tunnel sowing some purple Brussels sprouts seeds in modules, while trying to remain hopeful that this truly was a passing squall and not the heavens falling in as the heavyweight clouds suggested.

I forgot to record the actual blizzard that followed, so here are some Précoce de Louviers pointy spring cabbages that are growing most happily in the tunnel.

When I stuck my nose out of the tunnel some twenty minutes later, this was the view over Much Wenlock:

By which time it was too late, and the ground too wet to go back to compost spreading. As I walked home across the allotment, I watched strange, but less threatening clouds gather over the hills:

And when I stepped through the hedge into the wheat field behind our house, the sky looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in its mouth: snowstorm, what snowstorm?

Clearly the figment of a delusional, non-digging gardener then:

Bee In My Bean Blossom

In April at The Earth Laughs In Flowers, Jude wants to see our garden macros. This is also the Day 5 of the 7-day nature photo challenge. So here we have a bumble bee heading for my field bean flowers. I don’t blame it. They smell divine on a still, spring day.

This photo was taken up on my allotment, probably last year. At the moment the current crop of field beans, sown in September-October and overwintered, is only a hand’s width tall, but they’re looking quite healthy. Once they get going, they will grow as tall as I am, and need some support. The photo also shows bean weevil damage on the leaves. This is one of the drawbacks of allotment gardening. Pests like this become endemic. On the whole, though, the beans seem to carry on regardless.

Field beans are related to the broad bean (aka fava or faba) and they look much the same, but are less than half the size. Mostly they are grown in the UK as a green manure, the plants dug in before flowering. I grow them to eat. They make great re-fried beans, soup and a bean version of guacamole, which is astonishingly good.

My crop was so productive last year, I was able to eat and freeze them, and save masses of seed to dry and sow for this year’s crop. It’s the first time I’ve done this, so it will be interesting to see how they turn out. In consequence, I probably have grown too many. But once I see how the plants are faring, I shall sacrifice some of them. I mean to chop them down and leave them to rot on the soil surface, rather than digging them in. This will let the worms do the work, and keep the soil covered until I want to cultivate it.

I am beginning to see that digging is a very bad thing to do the earth. It wrecks the surface soil structure every time you do it, and so compromises fertility. Instead, the No Dig method relies on covering the soil surface with organic matter/compost every year, and then planting through it. The only problem is you need masses of compost. It also helps if you do your planting in raised beds. This way you do not walk on the soil, and can keep building up the fertility. Raised beds are easier to manage, and mulching the plants should massively cut down on the weeding, and the need to feed, or to water during dry spells.

Since last autumn I have been doing heavy labour on the new allotment plot that came with my polytunnel. (I hadn’t taken this into account when I got all excited about inheriting the tunnel from allotmenteers who were off to new territory.) The ground all round was heaving with dandelions and buttercups. And since this was before I discovered the no dig approach, I admit to using the quick and dirty method (though NOT weed killer) and slicing off the top layer of weeds, and dumping it in compost bins to rot down for a few years. The ground zero method of gardening.

I then commissioned He Who Does Not Garden But Lives In My House to construct and install on my plot several raised beds made out of recycled builders’ yard pallets. A couple went into action straight away, and were planted up in October with over-wintering onion sets. The others I have been filling up over the past few weeks. So far the onions are looking healthy and a few weeks ago I sprinkled organic hen manure pellets over their beds, an alternative to sulphate of ammonia, which I didn’t have to hand.

By now you will be beginning to grasp the lengths that this writer will go to in order not to sit in front of her computer and cultivate the master work. So far I have shifted around 30 barrow-loads of an old garden rubbish heap that has apparently been in the corner of the allotment for the last forty years, and until recently was covered in brambles and nettles. Strangely too, it was my idea to recycle it.

Off course when I say heap, I really mean small mountain. It’s full of bonfires past, rodent nests, and decomposed leaves from the nearby ash tree, as well as nearly half a century of weeds and waste. There’s also broken glass, bits of plastic fertilizer bags, and all sorts of unidentifiable metal items that gardeners of yore thought could be disposed of in such a manner. As I sift through the heap, I think how good it is that I’m putting the field practice of my long ago archaeology degree course to some sort of use.

In fact I have been keeping an eye out for old coins, remembering that a few years ago I uncovered a 1725 halfpenny right outside my shed door. It helps to keep me amused during the boring process of extracting unwanted detritus and plant roots.

I’ve also filled myself with a big enthusiasm infusion by deciding to dedicate one of the raised beds to growing flowering annuals to attract more bees. I shall also use it to grow on perennials (verbascum, heleniums, echinops) and biennial foxgloves that I’ve just germinated on the kitchen window sill. The thought of a raised bed bursting with summer flowers is so heartening. Doubtless you will see the results as time goes on.

But for now that’s enough talk about gardening. The sun is shining, and the weather forecast tells us we have a brief window of opportunity before the rain returns, so I’m off to the allotment with my pea and beetroot seedlings. I may even sow some parsnips. Happy Sunday one and all.

#7-daynaturephotochallenge

Tish Farrell

Writer on the Edge