Potato patch on Arran
 

We have gathered a seaweed mountain which is going to be the main
source of fertility/soil conditioning, until the new compostheaps and
comfreybeds start producing. A two-bay compost heap is built (with
pallets) and filling, but the comfrey roots are still hibernating in the
pot they travelled in. I'm hoping the sheep over the fence lamb under
cover, and that the farm down the lane will let me clean out the barn
afterwards...that mixture of trodden straw, sheep muck and wool scraps
makes wonderful compost. I'm also toying with the idea of feeding
rain-rinsed seaweed to a wormery..has anyone tried this?

This morning was dry, still and very mild, the water of the bay like a
millpond, just a sprinkling of snow on the mountain tops, and the air
has that wonderful Spring feel.. so I decided to make a start on a
potato bed in our new garden. The veg garden was left weedfree but had
not been cultivated for a long time by the elderly previous owners. The
soil is light sandy loam, horribly infested with the roots of a 30 ft
ash tree which are making an ominous underground beeline towards our
septic tank, from nextdoor's boundary shrubbery.

What the veg garden lacks, is worms. There must be plenty in the
well-dunged sheep meadow over the hedge because curlews, seagulls,
thrushes and blackbirds often feed there.I don't think our garden soil
has been fed for a very long time, and I have suspicions about how the
immaculate lawns were kept so weedfree.

So instead of forking over the soil lightly, I'm digging out trenches
two spits deep, hacking out the ash roots with axe or spade, and half
filling the trench with seaweed before covering it with the soil from
the next row. Large stones are tossed in a fishbasket, to be used later
as the foundations for paths. Slow but pleasurable work with light soil
and a stainless steel spade, accompanied by sounds of seagulls, and time
marked by the occasional "bing bong" from the ferry PA system as it
arrives or departs from the pier below.

Janet.












I've now

Potato patch on Arran
 

"Janet wrote in message

We have gathered a seaweed mountain which is going to be the main
source of fertility/soil conditioning, until the new compostheaps and
comfreybeds start producing. ((big snip))

I trust you will be planting International Kidney in your seaweed for that
true Jersey Royal taste.

--
Bob

www.pooleygreengrowers.org.uk/ about an Allotment site in
Runnymede fighting for it's existence.