Last year we brought 3 beds into use. They are pictured below (the third bed is top right where the fruitcage is. The first two beds were successful. We manured them well last year and got a good crop of onions, courgettes, beans and peas and especially Swiss chard.
We put potatoes on the third bed but put on hardly any manure. The soil there was damp and contained a great deal of clay. The potatoes were a failure. We have learnt our lesson. Potatoes like lighter, well composted or manured soil. We have used bed 3 for the sight of the fruitcage and it has been well manured. The fruitcage now contains 3 black currants, 3 red currants, 35 raspberries, 2 blueberries and about 60 strawberries.
There are beds waiting to be dug. Bed 5 was used last year for strawberries (all now moved to the fruit cage) and this year we will grow the potatoes there, though they will sit next to a nectarine tree and a peach tree, both planted over the weekend, and an apple and a plum tree, both planted last autumn.
Plot 4 was rotovated last year though we didn't use it. As a result, it grew a good crop of grass and the occasional bramble. We spread a thick layer of manure over this bed 2 weeks ago, in the expectation this would smother the grass and help to kill it. When I dug through the manure over the weekend, I found the grass was still green. This experiment may or may not work but we are going to have to do a lot of digging on bed 4.
Anyway, having given all the beds different numbers, it seems to me that I need to draw a plan of the allotment and post it up on this blog. I'll add it to my list of things to do.
1 comment:
What a great blog! And, lo, there you are in dirty jeans! :)
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