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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 |
#2
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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. |
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