More mundane chores and harvesting the potatoes

The sweet peas are looking good again after layering. It has taken them a little while to recover but they are beginning to flower really well now.  They still needed to be tidied up today because some of the flowers had gone over and started going to seed.  Also there were some side shoots and tendrils that needed to be taken off.

In order to make watering a little more effective they were hoed carefully using the swoe.  They were watered just with water because they had been given comfrey liquid yesterday.

The onions, sweet corn and the pumpkins were watered too.  Several pumpkins have started to produce fruit but they are not too big yet.

Yesterday I dug up about 36 kg (79lb) of potatoes.  This was from one line of twelve plants which gives an average of about 6lb of potatoes per plant. I think that this is quite a good yield of potatoes.  Last autumn I dug in a mixture of leaves and horse manure (NPK 0.44:0.35:0.3).  The horse manure was put on top of a pile of leaves (NPK 0.8:0.35:0.2) and this meant that you picked up leaves when you were forking the manure into the barrow.

Potato bed in January

Potato bed in February

I dug all this in in January and did not add anything else to the soil until the potatoes were planted.  When the potatoes were planted, inoculated charcoal and mychorrhizal fungi were put into the planting holes and the potatoes were planted on top of them.

Potato bed in March

Potato bed in April

Always have a tub next to you when you are gardening.

Potatoes in May

Potatoes in June

Potatoes in July

I dug up about the same amount of potatoes today and got 28 kg (62lb) from twelve plants.  Now, that is just two rows dug up.  I still have several to go.  The point is that I have not added the expensive, high NPK potato fertilisers.  In fact, I have not added any bought fertiliser at all.  Regardless of JBA's advice on another blog, I don't think that potatoes need a high NPK fertiliser.  You don't need to buy expensive fertilisers and amendments to get a really good crop of potatoes.  

I have dug up the third row of potatoes now.  Only 24 kg. (53lb) from this row.  I hope that the yield does not continue to fall like this.  Some plants produce a lot less than others.  Maybe I should leave them in a little longer. If I average the weight of potatoes over the three rows it comes out at about 5lb per plant, which is probably more than I will need.  

End of July 12 potato plants

These are from JBA seed potatoes.  Thanks a lot JBA these were fantastic seed potatoes.  Produced a lot of spuds.  I will be getting more from you next year because these are obviously superior seed potatoes.  

Garden maintenance

The onion bed needed weeding so I started with the onions and worked across the bed.  I find that doing this systematically gets it finished very quickly.  I used the onion hoe to weed between the plants.  It is a very useful tool.


It is a handy tool that allows you to earth up the leeks as well as hoe the weeds.  I don't always hoe up the leeks but if you do it will give you more blanched leaf than if you just leave them.

I had a different tool for many years which was more or less an oval blade but it eventually  wore itself out. I did like it because it was very efficient getting weeds out.

I was going to feed the onions but I didn't want to take the weeds off.  They would wither away in the hot sun if I just left them on top of the soil.  Watering would only help them to recover and start to grow again.  I will leave it until tomorrow.

I took out a couple of lettuces that had gone over and put them in the worm bin.  I didn't think that there would be any worm liquid after I had cleared the bin out, however there was quite a bit.  I put this into the comfrey bin without a tap.  It will go through and get some comfrey liquid with it.  I am using the liquid from this bin to put into the dustbin with the charcoal.  It is pretty concentrated because I have not put any water into this bin.  I am hoping to get some powerful inoculated charcoal.  I would like to keep this charcoal marinading in comfrey mixture until next year if possible.  The I will use it on all the vegetables.

I tied up the tomatoes that I planted on the onion bed.  I just noticed that the potatoes might have blight so I will probably loose all the tomatoes.  We shall see.

I gave the runner beans and the sweet peas another feed with comfrey liquid.  The sweet peas are beginning to recover from being layered and producing some really big flowers.

There was a handful of runner beans to be picked and the stems that had reached the top of the cane supports needed pinching out.  If you pinch out the growing tips of the runner beans when they reach the top of the canes it makes them produce more side shoots.  The more side shoots, the more flowers so it is worth doing if only to prevent the top of the canes becoming overcrowded and top heavy.  When this happens the whole row could topple over especially as we have some wicked winds at the top of the hill.

I have taken out another row of potatoes.  Got a barrow load from twelve plants. Not sure of the weight because I have not weighed them yet.

I washed the potatoes so they are looking quite good at the moment.  They were washed for a couple of reasons.  There is no point in bringing best topsoil home and washing the soil off them only to go down the drain.  If the potatoes are washed in a tub at the allotment then I can put the soil back on the potato bed.  The dirty water was poured around the tomato plants on the potato bed.  Secondly, any slugs and snails will be washed off the potatoes and not be put into the store paper bags to reek havoc while the potatoes are stored.

I started cutting the old fruiting raspberry canes out because they have gone over now and all the strawberries have been picked.  This is a summer fruiting variety with a very sweet taste.  The old canes apart from having the fruiting branches are also very dark brown while the new ones are usually quite green.  This means that it is quite easy to identify the old canes and cut them out.  I tied most of the new canes to the support wires but I will have to make sure they are fastened securely but I will do this when I take the Pink Fir Apple potatoes out and I can get down the other side of the row.  I might have to take the potatoes out sooner than I expected because they might have blight.  I was going to glean the old raspberry canes for any fruit left on them but there was very little and what there was had been spoilt by the rain.

More blackberries were ready for picking and I took off quite a few.  With a few beetroot, carrots and the last of the summer cauliflowers I had quite a car full when I was going home.  All the summer cauliflowers had club root and if they did it was probably in the seed.  However, cabbage root fly also makes the cauliflower root swell.  It probably was cabbage root fly (Delia radicum) rather than club root (Plasmodiophora brassicae.)  I have not had club root on the brassicas for years now.

I am trying to get the sweet peas to produce a really good display of flowers so that I can choose some for a show.  I took off a lot of the flowers when I layered them and they have not really started to flower well again yet. I gave them all a really good dose of comfrey liquid and then watered them with water from the butt.

I really need a lot of flowers so that I have a good choice for the show.  The flowers that are left on the plants have at least four buds.  Still I do not want shows and competitions to spoil my enjoyment of growing  just for itself.

Mick gave me some more of his weeds so I dug a trench and buried them on the pea bed.

I spent the rest of the afternoon podding peas.  I got another 2.5 kg of peas from the plants as I took them out. Not bad for gleanings me thinks.

The pods were put into the worm bin.  I want to use the nitrogen locked up in the pods.

I got one of the potatoes out - I got about 5Kg of spuds - and washed them.  There is no point in taking soil home and then washing it down the drain.  It is much better for them to be washed at the allotment and then the soil stays with my allotment.

Continuing to dig over the pea bed.

Yesterday I dug about half of the pea bed and today I finished it off.  Mick was good enough to give me the weeds that he was collecting as he dug up the potatoes.  I just see weeds as free nutrients and I will bury them without any compunction.

I dug out trenches two feet wide and one spit down.  The bottom of the trench was forked over really well.

It is amazing just how dry the soil was in the bottom of the trench even with a week of rain.  Weeds and grass mowings were used to fill the trench and this was then covered by the top soil from the next trench.

It was a little time consuming because I had to wheel barrow the weeds from Mick's allotment and the grass mowings from the bins near the gate.  I have virtually taken all the grass mowings from the bay much to the chagrin of Ed who wanted to use some of the mowings to weigh down the weeds he had put onto his compost heap.  Well if there is anything that is almost certain in this world it is that there will be more lawn mowings put into the bins before the summer is out and Ed is welcome to those.

While I had the trench open, I thought that it would be an idea to empty the worm bin.  The bin has not been emptied for about three years now so it was well overdue for a good clean out.  There were lots of worms and some very good compost at the bottom.  I took out the top six inches and put it to one side.  The rest went into the barrow to be taken up to the trench.  I messed around with the bit at the bottom which keeps the compost away from the liquid so that the liquid would flow out of the bin easily.  The top 6 inches were returned to the bin together with some lettuces and comfrey leaves.

The worm bin compost was then put into the last trench together with lawn mowings and some tree leaves.  The top soil was put back and the whole bed was levelled - more or less - with a rake.  I will have to level it a little more because the soil has been raised by about six inches but I will do this with more care when I plant out the Kelvedon Wonder peas.

The Kestrel potatoes seemed to have grown well.  I took one plant out and got about 5 kg of potatoes from it. I will take some more of these out today.

I only had time to harvest some turnips, swedes and tomatoes today.  There were also some podded peas to take home.  I will harvest more tomorrow.

Digging over the pea bed

I don't usually dig in July and this is probably the first year that I have done just that.  Due to lack of time the ground is usually just hoed then cultivated using the three pronged cultivating tool and finally raked.  This will prepare the ground for replanting. However, this year I am digging.

The reason why I am digging the ground this year is to incorporate the tops of the old pea plants into the soil.  Peas and beans will add extra nitrogen  but only if the old plants are allowed to rot down in the soil.  Nitrogen from the atmosphere is captured by Rhizobium bacteria in nodules on the pea and bean root.  Some of this nitrogen is transferred to the pea or bean plant in exchange for carbohydrates produced during photosynthesis by the plant.
The nitrogen is used by the plant to make proteins - vital building blocks of cells.  This means that there is a net gain in organic nitrogen.

This nitrogen will only be released to the soil when the plant begins to decompose.  It has been said that you should leave the roots in the soil, cutting the tops off and burning or composting  the them.   Only 30% of the captured nitrogen is in the roots while 60% is in the tops.  If you cut up and bury the tops as well you will be adding 90% of the captured nitrogen to the soil.

So this is why I am digging in July.  It is hot work and if it was not cold and rainy I don't think I would be inclined to spend so much energy digging trenches.  It did not take very much time to bury the pea plants so I needed to fill the other trenches with different green manure.  I scouted around the allotment for anything that needed to be composted or buried.  The lettuce had gone over and started to rot so they went in the trench.  There was nothing else that needed to be buried.

The raspberries have gone over now and I will have to cut  out the fruiting canes.  These are woody and will not rot down very quickly in the soil.  However, I will still put them at the bottom of the trenches.

I am filling the trenches with grass mowings from the bays by the entrance gates.  There is a great deal of nitrogen locked up in grass mowings.  It is not nitrogen that has been captured by Rhizobium bacteria but it could be nitrogen captured by Azotobacter, free living nitrogen fixing bacteria.  Grass has a NPK ratio of 1.0:0:1.2. and this is good enough for me.

The grass mowings were very hot when I was collecting them from the bays.  Whether this will affect the new pea plants when I put them in remains to be seen.  I would conjecture that it will not affect them at all.

Under the first spit of soil the ground was very dry.  I was quite surprised because of the amount of rain we have been having.  Not as much as I thought by the looks of things.  Adding more organic matter to the soil will help it retain water and improve the drainage at the same time.

I podded the peas when it was raining but I still have quite a few to pod tomorrow.  I will harvest quite a few things tomorrow.  These will include salsify, scorzonera, beetroot, carrots, rainbow chard, rhubarb, potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, turnip, blackberries, raspberries and podded peas.

Loverly jubberly.