If I feed the soil, the soil feeds me

Despite the growing season winding down, the allotment is still supplying a lot of our fresh vegetable needs.

The patty pan has so far escaped powdery mildew and is producing plenty of fruit. The french beans have been having a second flush and the tomatoes are ripening in spite of the lack of sunshine. I also have a couple of rows of sweet baby carrots left, baby corn, pak choi, spinach beet, spring onions, cucumbers and salads.

Added to the stuff I'm still picking I have stores of onions, shallots, garlic, plenty of potatoes and a drawer full of frozen veg in my freezer.

It's very satisfying knowing I've grown all this food, but there is always room for improvement. Over the summer I noticed that some other plot holders had bigger and better crops than mine and I've been chatting to people and getting advice. I think the main thing I need to work on is soil improvement, adding organic matter and fertilizers.

To this end I've been building up my compost heap all summer and mixing it regularly. A couple of weeks ago I turned it out and found beneath the top layer I had some lovely compost ready to use. I've also got a couple of bin bags full saved from earlier in the year.

And then, while picking blackberries in the car park area last week, I made an exciting discovery - mature manure! (Yes I know most people don't get excited about manure). It was the tramped down remains of the old communal manure heap and seems to have been overlooked in a quiet corner.

I decided I'd better grab some before someone else found it so I abandoned the tasks I'd planned and spent that morning shoveling manure and fetching barrow loads up to my plot instead. It was hard work and the short steep slope up to the plots from the car park area seemed to get longer with every trip.

But it was worth it. I now have another compost bin full of lovely crumbly manure.

In a few weeks time, when I clear my beds, both the compost and manure can be added to the soil to improve it's structure and fertility.

Hard work and mystery

It's been a busy month with school holidays and sick children but although I haven't found the time to post I have been hard at work on the allotment.

It really seems to have paid off digging the plot over thoroughly and removing as much as possible of the pernicious weeds. Some are coming up, including the dreaded bindweed, But these have mostly been small weak specimens that are not too difficult to dig up and remove. Another plot holder just roughly dug his plot and covered it in straw and now there is a forest of bindweed shooting up all over it! (Thank goodness it's a few plots away from mine).

I've now finished digging over my plot and have been preparing the beds for planting next month. I've dug trenches for my french beans and planting pits for my courgettes and outdoor cucumbers, all of which are growing merrily on my kitchen windowsill. I've also covered the beds with a straw mulch to keep down weeds and retain water.

From the end of March I've been direct sowing seeds and was disappointed that nothing seemed to be growing. Last week on closer inspection I found that they have germinated, along with a good crop of annual weeds. So I've been busy weeding, thinning out seedlings and sowing more. I'm trying to sow secessionly every 2 - 3 weeks so that everything isn't ready at the same time.

I've planted a strawberry bed, thanks to my mum giving me some strawberry runners. I need to get a few more plants to fill it and think about netting. I'm told the local birds will gobble up the lot given half a chance.

I got my partner to turn the compost heap (there are advantages to being head gardener!) and was pleased to see it is breaking down well. My first load of Bokashi waste seems to have worked ok too. It was covered in the right kind of mould (white and fluffy, not green) and smelled like it was fermenting. I added it to the heap as it was being turned.

Finally we end with two mysteries.

My mystery tree is in full blossom. It's had lots of admirers but no one seems to know what it is. It's probably a crab apple, but hopefully it's something else that we can actually eat.

The other mystery are my neighbours to the left, who I've never met. I'm on my plot at different times and days of the week and in 4 months I've never seen them. Every now and then there has been signs of work being done, more so recently, but no sign of anyone doing it. I have a theory that they are gardening at night.