Creating a Brassica Bed

[Two_Sheds]

Can anyone tell me how they create the 'Perfect Brassica Bed' and what they put on it

Butterfly netting

[Snadger]

Is there an echo in here?

[Snadger]

6X is just manure................but six times as strong.Ie if you would have used six spades full of manure, you only need one spade full of 6X. Use as you would chicken pellets, at planting time.

[Snadger]

Its normally advocated to lime the brassica bed in spring as it will get washed out with the winter rains.

[Comfreyfan]

As I understand it Brassicas like a nice bit of humus and nitrogen. So I usually add some home compost any time from now on top of the soil and let the worms work on it for a while, then fork it into the surface with some fish blood and bone before planting time (they're greedy), followed by a good stomping down. I also grow the Brassicas after peas and beans - the legumes lock nitrogen in the soil for a bit extra. I'm no expert, but I think if you added 6X now, a lot of the goodness would have leached out by the time you plant. But like I said they are greedy and some extra fertiliser during the gowing season can help and apparently it's often nitrogen they're short of.

Found this: 6X Natural Fertiliser Analysis: Nitrogen(N) 5.8%; Phosphorus(P) 3.5%; Potassium(K) 3%

whoops - got distracted while posting and another 6 replies since I started!!

[Snadger]

Echo's abound...........

[Two_Sheds]

Brassicas after peas and beans - the legumes lock nitrogen in the soil

Nope, they don't

[Comfreyfan]

Nope, they don't

Don't they? I always thought they did and just googled it again to check and found it in several different places including the RHS website. On the other hand if they don't it could ease some of my crop rotation headaches!

[Snadger]

Semantics methinks..........they fixate nitrogen to the plant roots which can be used by other crops.

[Comfreyfan]

Aaah - that explains it, I always dig the pea/bean roots and stems back in (didn't know why - just cos my dad said so!), so that's how it fixes into the soil - another mystery explained. I love this place

[Two_Sheds]

they fixate nitrogen to the plant roots which can be used by other crops.

No, they don't.

It was all over the gardening progs this year: that the plants do indeed store/fix nitrogen in their roots, but that's when they're young. As the plant matures, that nitrogen is taken up and used to produce pods. When the plants finish, there is very little nitrogen left in the roots for the soil.

The nitrogen myth

It's not Chris Beardshaw's own theory, it's from academics: "nodules on annual legumes generally lose their ability to fix nitrogen, because the plant feeds the developing seed rather than the nodule"

"Some legumes are better at fixing nitrogen than others. Common beans are poor fixers (less than 50
lbs per acre) and fix less than their nitrogen needs."

"The amount of nitrogen returned to the soil during or after a legume crop can be misleading. Almost all of the nitrogen fixed goes directly into the plant. Little leaks into the soil for a neighboring non-legume plant."


source: http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_a/a-129.pdf

[Snadger]

No, they don't.

It was all over the gardening progs this year: that the plants do indeed store/fix nitrogen in their roots, but that's when they're young. As the plant matures, that nitrogen is taken up and used to produce pods. When the plants finish, there is very little nitrogen left in the roots for the soil.

The nitrogen myth

Ah well...........if Chris Beardshaw advocates it, it must be right!

[Comfreyfan]

Interesting stuff - think I'll carry on digging it all in though - it's all goodness, every little helps and when it comes to the crops - if it ain't broke, I don't fix it!!

[MarkHackwell]

Thanks for the information you lot Soo your suggesting that I should put on the 6X when i have planted my Brassicas. Soo what can i put on now too prepare the bed or do I just dig it over and firm it down and leave it for now?

[SarzWix]

Yep, that's about it Mark
You could cover the bed with cardboard or woven weed-fabric, just to keep the weeds down til you're ready to plant - this mild winter isn't stopping the weed growth much