Finally finished sieving

I have finally finished sieving the soil on the new potato bed.  It has taken me over two months to do it and I really don't know whether it will make the smallest amount of difference to how well the potatoes grow.  However, it has made me feel I have achieved something.

So over the whole of the potato bed I have sieved the soil to a depth of two spits at least.  The couch grass, twigs, branches, weeds, etc. that I buried two years ago have rotted down to a fine compost and could be mixed in with the horrible soil.  Once this was done it made some passable soil.

The whole bed was raked and roughly levelled but I will have to do this again when the weather warms up and the soil is a little drier.

I still have quite a lot of the horse manure left so I will put it around the upturned dust bins that are covering the Rheum rhaponticum.  I am forcing the rhubarb to give me some good petioles in early spring.  I don't mind eating unforced rhubarb but this first crop is always the sweetest.

The hardy cyclamen are flowering again but the species iris still have some time to go before they flower.  I planted some more species iris next to the cyclamen but these have already flowered.

I planted some Lactuca sativa "Web's Wonderful" and some Brassica Oleracea "Golden Acre". I don't know whether these early sowings of vegetables is going to give me anything worth growing but I am only using a few seeds so I don't think that I will be wasting anything.  It is trying to keep them alive that is the difficulty.

I pricked out the Brassica oleracea botrytis "All The Year Round" into their own small 2 inch pots.  I will be a little more optimistic when I have sown seeds during February.  But you have to give it a go don't you?

I really write this blog  so I know when I have done things in the greenhouse and allotment. If you do what I do then you will get the same failures that I get and there is no guarantee that you will get the same successes.

Good growing.

Cleaning out the greenhouse and washing more pots and trays.

The old tomato plants had stopped fruiting and were removed from the greenhouse and bagged up ready to take to the allotment to put onto the compost heap.  They were in large pots and these needed washing.  As soapy water was being used all the other trays and pots were washed as well. 

 The pots were stored under the staging for the moment so that washed ones could be identified easily.  Plant labels were also washed and put into an old onion net bag and hung up to dry. 

After washing the pots, a three to one New Horizon’s all purpose compost to sharp sand mix was made to plant up the Crassula ovatea cuttings.  The cuttings were dipped into hormone rooting powder and then firmed into the compost in 3 inch ceramic pots. The cuttings were then put onto the covered shelves to give them a little more warmth. 

Two Schlumbergera bridgesii (Christmas cactus) were re-potted by removing the plants from their pots, taking off some of the soil from the roots and the surface and then replacing with new compost using the same pot. 

 This was also done with the Begonia Rex, Chlorophytum comosum (Spider plant), Pelargonium crispum (Lemon scented geranium), Crassula ovatea (Jade plant) and Cyclamen persicum spp.  Although the plants were put back in the same sized pots, some were put back in similar sized ceramic pots. Some of the Begonia Rex were potted into smaller pots because the ones they were in were too large. 

All the plants except for the Crassula ovatea cuttings and the Cyclamen were put back in the house.  

The Cyclamen persicum spp. have just started to re-grow so three were placed into a large pot with new  compost.  They will be grown on a little more in the greenhouse. 


Tomorrow will be sweet pea planting day...

A dark and dismal January day.

Garlic and broad beans seem to be surviving well but it is still very early days.  We still have one more week of January to go and there is forecast some more cold weather.

Two lines of garlic were planted in October last year and now about 6 inches tall.  They have been planted with inoculated charcoal and mychorrhizal fungi.  The frost tends to bring the charcoal to the surface but I don't think you can see it particularly well on this photograph. 

These are the broad beans that have germinated.  There are big gaps in the row as there was last year but I expect them to germinate as soon as the weather warms a little more.  You can see the difference between this soil and the soil in the onion and garlic bed.  The soil from this area was totally replaced by the council due to contamination.

The new soil was from an organic farm but had a very large proportion of stone in it.  Four allotment holders had their soil replaced completely while I only had the bottom bed of my allotment replaced.  You can see that even with a great deal of stone taken off, there is still a lot in this soil.  The other thing you can see is the charcoal that I used last year under the Onward peas.  I found the inoculated charcoal very effective especially on this poorer soil.

I have raised up the level of the soil using a mixture of turf, weeds, leaves and compost.  This has helped to drain this soil.  It was full of large lumps of clay and needed a great deal of working before it would grow anything substaintial.  I am hoping that the broad beans will add a little nitrogen to the soil here because I want to grown roots after the broad beans have fruited.  The rhubarb is in the background and is just starting to bud.  However,  I don't expect it to start growing substantially for another couple of months. 

This cyclamen is growing at the side of the sweet pea and runner bean bed.  I have added a lot of gravel to this area and the cyclamen seem to be enjoying it.  Some of the other bulbs are beginning to show now.

The soil in this bed is particularly fertile having a lot of organic matter added to it. It has been sieved thoroughly.  Most of the stones on this bed are 1/4 inch or less.  If you look carefully at this soil you can just see the charcoal that has been added.