No dig allotment , the easy way!

 I've seen all the utube vids from experts like Charles Dowding, I watched Huws garden for years, enjoying his earnest and easy style, I've read books on Hotbeds, Companion Planting and have known Mr Hessayons input for over 50 years, and  I still champion the wonderful Ruth Stout, who knew a thing or two  before they were all born BUT declare that I have found my own way to grow my veg without getting embroiled in 'right ways'.

My allotment is full size, apart from the tiny part my daughter uses. My neighbours all come from school of straight lines , no weeds, and double dig.  I don't have rules , am not pretending to be wholly organic, don't have any weeds only pollinators, and plants needing a more suitable home.

 I get immense pleasure from removing couch grass  to its rightful home, the grass borders, and allow the bindweed to bind away next to the railway line so that I can play "Grandma! Grandma !Pop out of bed !' in August. I don't worry if my 3 colour rotation is tweaked , as long as onions never grow in the same ground 2 years running.

Picture one 

I don't dig, I gently fork out Some deep perennials like  Dandelions and Nettles and bountiful and profligate free seeders like Sow Thistles  and  Borage before winter, I know the hoped for frosts will kill the little annuals like Chickweed and Groundsel , Spurges  and Creeping Speedwell, and my favourite Scarlet Pimpernel but welcome them the following year, easily hoed out . I leave them on the soil as mulch.

I do not have access to a ton of Stable manure as my neighbours do. My plot is not next to the road so the tractor can tip it into the yearning  bins. I have to barrow it all from the pile dropped by the road to my bins. I cant manage that.  Friend Colin brings me beautiful 2 yr rotted down stuff from his small holding when he has time, and barrows it to the bin for me, but it is past being manure, it is lovely compost, friable and rich and I am sparing with it. 

All no -diggers add mulch  on top of beds every year, mulch on mulch, on mulch and on mulch. My soil is never bare, Crops over winter, and bare soil on beds which dont change  like Asparagus and Rhubarb are cushioned in mulch all winter.

My 3 year rotation suits me . I don't need to grow many cabbages, so one brassica bed is enough most years, as I like Sprouting Broccoli which crops for up to 2 years if the growing points are nipped off.  I have about 10 raised beds in old builders bags filled with greenstuff which rots down, like the masses of   creeping bulky Nasturtians which easily fill the empty  bag beds in October. I usually plant the bag beds up with garlic the first year .

This is how my easy no dig works

Raised bed and dormant straw bale
awaiting its fate

• Divide your plot into strips so that you can work without treading and compacting the soil.
• Work out each autumn what you want to grow the next year, and  plan where you want to put them within your rotation system , 3 year or 4 year
• Don't think you have  to  cultivate each strip the first year
• Work on one strip at a time, depending on what time you start
• Starting in  Autumn  cover strips with cardboard and mulch ( could be manure or heavy stones or bricks to weigh down from wind)
• Cardboard is the best friend of no dig. Encourage your friends to give you all theirs from buying large items. Ikea is your best friend here! Cardboard should be brown and with no sellotape or writing all over it, or a shiny layer. Plain porous brown is best, just remove tape and staples. Cover your strips with it , having taken out perennial weeds and large stones  first and raked as flat as is practical. (Ruth Stout planted on top of grass field , but you will have  to google that  as she planted on bales of hay.)Stop the cardboard blowing away  by watering it and weighing down with bricks or large stones. My foolproof method is to buy 10 bale of barley straw every Spring which I leave to get thoroughly damp and wet so that by the autumn it can be separated into slabs and easily placed on the cardboard. See Picture one 
• Just gradually do this to all your strips
• If you are using a strip as Add Manure in Autumn, my yellow  strips that year, add  chicken pellets on top of straw , or stable manure if you have  some. Add more in the spring too . 
• You are now up and running . By the spring you can plant straight into the bed, even if you have to make a hole .  I rarely plant seeds straight in to strips as most seeds can be sown in modules  and dug into bed when large enough . I put potatoes under more straw and never earth up , just making sure straw is thick enough to block the light, as green potatoes are poisonous.  Brassicas go straight in from modules when about 6inches big with 6 leaves, Leeks the same , Chard the same , sweetcorn too and beetroot. You use the modules discarded by garden centres, and fellow gardeners. I wash them and use very year until they split. 6  or 9 are the best, as the tiny ones have  not enough root run and have to be replanted in to larger ones . Our Nursery Reighton sells ready grown seedlings in a 5in flower pot ready to be pricked on into modules, these are cheaper than buying a packet of seeds. 
• I often let vegetables go to seed , and when plants come up around them I use these, Chards and broccoli do this easily.
• If you are starting in the Spring  you have to make sure not too much bare soil is open to the 'weeds' so plant Green Manure until you ready to use. Cover with crops as soon as possible, even radishes, and lettuces to cover. I would plant lots potatoes under straw the first year just to use the land , and gradually do the 3 Colour rotation.
• 
  I plant Garlic, Onions ( from Sets) and broad beans in the autumn. More sets can be planted in the Spring. Advice from Mr Hessayon still applies to cultivation here. 
  
  
  
  
  
  

Lightening and Thunderbolt

Since my last post in May I have not been enjoying a deckchair in the garden , reading countless books of Detective fiction, baking Frangipane tarts , walking along the shoreline in bare feet or decorating the downstairs bathroom. I've had dozens of ideas of blogs to enthral . My spare time has of course led me to my Allotment plot a mile from my home here, where I can see the sea when I stand on the front step. 

For 5 years now I have had Dave's pristine (once) old plot as well as mine. I used to share my plot with Bernard, and I have his as well since he married Queenie in 2017. I am what John Siddle used to say was one who gardened in organized chaos. 

I cherish those words. John taught me English at my Grammar school ,Greatfield High school. Hull , in the 1960s. He came back into my life when he retired to Filey . On this day when grandchildren get English results, I don't sit here hoping I would manage my O level English Language again now; I don't need to imagine my old mentor is checking my participles , or my Latin master appreciating my understanding of the archaic language as informing my Botanical nomenclature, as I couldn't care less. Wen i text i say u and c and as long as it is understood it no longer worries me. I can't text quickly like my offspring and their offspring. I can't Word Process quickly either, I use 2 fingers. If I were back at my school I would not have taken Chemistry and PE, I would have sat in the Commercial class as it was called ,and learn to touch type to music as I used to hear them all doing, that is a skill indeed.

My organized CHAOS may be discerned by the no dig gardeners, the new  Ruth Stouts, and and present  Bob Flowerdews as an Allotment of the future times, even here in the land that time forgot, where Peat Free Compost is not sold in our allotment shop (yet ). Even here we No Dig gardeners need discernment, as the Peat Free Compost in our wonderful Reighton Nurseries is not all it seems either, as the ingredient replacing the peat is from China! 

I want to record in 2021 that even if I have to give up my plot I am trying to use Practice which though not completely in the school of Charles Dowding  is as good for the planet as I can manage . Here I put my hand up to Rat Bait in sheds,  occasional weed killer on the border with the Railway embankment, and use of Cardboard that is not always brown .

Paul Wilson , (Advanced trees and grounds) supplies me with woodchip for my paths, the grandsons are employed to barrow it up to the plot.

Firstly Im thankful for the supply of good , large pieces of cardboard brought to my plot by friends. Many days I arrive at the plot to find treasure outside the shed door as I arrive to the packaging from garden chairs, beds, flat packs and even coffee pods. Thank you all the Helens, Stuarts, Lisas  , Michaels for thinking of me,

Networking always pays off when in need of supplies for No Dig.  John and his wife in Irton used to sell me all their horse manure. They were the first of the interesting folk one meets only through cultivating the earth .

John would ring me and say he'd got a load , did I want it ? He had one old horse. The manure was straight from the field into sacks, and pure gold . It took a year to rot down and though I used to find it hard work barrowing even the sacks from the road to my plot , the two of us working together , it took half an hour , and worth it. I was upset when his old horse died and that supply ceased. Now my friend Ingrid whose daughter has a horse will bring me supplies , and if the bush telegraph works well on the site I get to hear when a free load has been dumped at the end of the road by my plot. 

That is how I met Therese and Stuart one February as we  spent a bitterly cold  morning helping ourselves to the contents of a winter  cow byre  . They are not only great suppliers of spare veg and cardboard but helpful and friendly, perfect allotmenteers. It was on that day that I met the young Syrian eye -surgeon refugee, who was waiting for his status to practice in this Country, From him I learned about the pale courgettes beloved of Syrians in their cuisine, which I now grow and pray for Syria as I tend them .

I tried to encourage my beloved to sit in my shed /greenhouse in the winter, cosy and warm next to my hotbeds , which I can get to 80F in January , February and March using straw , manure and urine and reading my book on Hotbeds , he won't, even though I have a sun lounger for him. 

The straw for my hot beds now comes from  friend Colin up above Hunmanby . He delivers straight to plot for me. I leave all the spare bales outdoor until October to get soaking wet and then it goes beautifully on top of the cardboard, with handfuls of chicken pellet fertiliser, and any donated horse manure. Colin also brings me horse manure from his field, let out to horses. This is fantastic stuff as it is already 3years rotted and  growing magic.

John Siddle might see some chaos on the plot , but it is very organised too. I let Borage and plantains seed all over as pollinators . The Borage can grow to 3feet tall in few weeks . I don't remove it, it will seed freely for next year, and is so easy to spot may always be pulled up if necessary. Chives are the first mass bed to attract the bees, after the Woad of April, the Cowslips, Primroses  and Violas of March and the Hyacinths and Daffodils of January and February. All summer long a favourite native plant Scarlet Pimpernel creeps and flowers, I rarely weed it out as I do all the Chickweed which goes to Pete for his budgies. I like the Groundsel and Sow thistles, and remove the Flowerdew way by just pulling and leaving to rot down on the soil's surface as mulch, as with the spurges and speedwells. I can always recognize them if I have to remove . The Couch Grass and Horsetails are another thing altogether, removed and incinerated as soon as spotted. This is easy with the Horsetails , as Bernard eradicated most of them , but the Couch Grass is so hard to get out , as every little bit of underground stem if left in the ground will thrive to produce new plants, and as for Bindweed , that gorgeous 'Grandma Grandma Pop out of bed ' plant that has to be removed if possible and its underground stems look like a tube map.. 

This year has been very hard for me to keep up with removing the pernicious 'weeds ', as I do not have time . They need an army of people who do not carry I am a carer card. 

 Tagetes minutii  did not germinate well this year. It is the companion plant that exudes a toxin which slows the growth of Couch grass,  so next years first challenge . It is a wonderful plant , growing up to 5'tall and I like to make windbreaks of it. I'm growing Tansy too amongst the raspberries , same use of companion planting. 

I have been nurturing a pot of Ginger  or Tumeric all year, but now realise it is Couch grass. Its beautiful though and could do well if was marketed as a conservatory plant and watered well. It would be cheap and easily divided to give away to friends as long as not planted out, then you would be as popular as if you had given them Japanese Knotweed. Would my friend who thought I went to Roedean please ignore this advice. I never should have said to her a we drove past the school on way to Newhaven , 'there my old school' because she believed me for years I later found out . If you are from Hull you will know that Greatfield High school in 1959 to 65 was rough, and girls like me had to get tough to cope with it. 

So Ive surrendered my Thunderbolt adapter now that Ive given away my Mac air, but bought a Lightening adapter for my ipad . I shall be showing my beloved his grandson  Reubens Blog, this blog and all my photos as soon as I have him as a captive audience in front  of the TV set, just as I've trained him on the input from the remote.