Bare soil...

[Snadger]

I'm a failure!I have bare soil where I've harvested stuff and haven't put more stuff in. I have Japanese onions (red and Senshyu sets) to go in, self saved broad bean seeds and some PSB and spring cabbage to transplant thats been decimated by the flying rats!. I can maybe get away with still transplanting a few leeks but I'm still going to finish up with bare soil.
I've always preached about the weedwatchers and their brown winter deserts on the allotment site and now i'm now worrying that I may evolve into one!

Have I lost my Mojo?

[veggiechicken]

Don't worry Snadge, those brown and barren wastes will soon be green - and covered in weeds
PS Have you looked down the back of the sofa - lots of Mojos end up there.

[Bigmallly]

Am a believer that soil should be given a rest & personally like to prepare beds for the following year by topping up with manure/compost & covering till the following spring.............I know, I spoil my beds.......

[Jeanied]

Now that is a great idea BM - I have a new helper to get me organised on clearing my plot, co-incidentally there are several large piles of horse poo beside my plot and a left-over pile of chippings to sort out the path. Solutions everywhere!

[marchogaeth]

Am a believer that soil should be given a rest & personally like to prepare beds for the following year by topping up with manure/compost & covering till the following spring.............I know, I spoil my beds.......

Now that is a great idea BM - I have a new helper to get me organised on clearing my plot, co-incidentally there are several large piles of horse poo beside my plot and a left-over pile of chippings to sort out the path. Solutions everywhere!

It's what I do in the garden, too. Only a few beds have stuff in them over winter. The tunnel is busy all year but I try to pile up FYM on any bits of that which are going to be vacant for a time. The worms get what they can and then I move what's left when I need to plant in the bed.

[Greenleaves]

You could always grow green manure Snadge?

[WendyC]

You could always grow green manure Snadge?

One of my fellow plot holders said to me last week, " I can't believe how the weeds have grown on your plot where you'd dug it over. " I replied yes it's grown because I planted a green manure!


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[Snadger]

You could always grow green manure Snadge?

Pah! I ain't sticking nowt int ground I can't eat. The only green manure I would contemplate would be Caleinte mustard as a soil sterilant. Wrong time of year for that though (and I've already got the vestiges of clubroot so can't risk another brassica! so I'll have to think of summat else!
I could get loads more alliums but the GC i deal with now only stocks those expensive packs whereas you used to be able to buy loose onion sets at a couple of quid for all you could carry!
I have a large bed covered with Comfey and cardboard and another covered with cardboard and hoss muck, but in the past even though I've covered beds, I've grown something through the mulch over winter.

Not only have I lost my mojo I'm turning into a reet auld miserable git!

[marchogaeth]

Pah! I ain't sticking nowt int ground I can't eat.D

You could plant winter beans and pretend you were going to eat them right up until the moment you dug them in!

[Snadger]

You could plant winter beans and pretend you were going to eat them right up until the moment you dug them in!

Now why didn't I think of that? I am actually going to plant a LOT of broadies as there's only me in the house who likes them and the majority I grew this year I kept for seed for next years crop.
I have a bucket full of Aquuadulce I think which will be enough to fill two beds. What the heck i'm going to do with all the beans next year, goodness knows. Could make a couscous type of stuff I suppose.

On the subject of broad beans, why have I been digging up beans burried within my tattie bed? Could it be mice and do they hibernate and stock up with food like squirrels? A lot of my beans had been raided but I presumed grey squirrels or rats had taken them

[Kristen]

Pah! I ain't sticking nowt int ground I can't eat

What if the Green Manure crop increases the yield of next Spring's crop by, say, 25% - would that justify it?

[Two_Sheds]

I have bare soil

Quick, get thee some weeds and old plants, chop them up and leave them on the soil as a mulch until you want to plant something.

[Dusty Rhodes]

Quick, get thee some weeds and old plants, chop them up and leave them on the soil as a mulch until you want to plant something.

I have some old bindweed Snadger can have, if that'll help out...

[Nicos]

On the subject of broad beans, why have I been digging up beans burried within my tattie bed? Could it be mice and do they hibernate and stock up with food like squirrels? A lot of my beans had been raided but I presumed grey squirrels or rats had taken them

A few years back one of our lottie neighbours found a cache of Jerusalem artichokes buried amongst other crops they were digging up ...yup must have been squirrels/ rats to have dug them up from our plot and buried then elsewhere....too heavy for mice!

However at this time of year many of our stored hazel and walnuts get pinched from the cellar and carried up into the roof space via a thin gap in the old wall insulation.
As our attic bedroom has sloping roof in parts you can often hear an accidentally dropped nut rolling down on top of the plasterboard!
...oh and yup...this is the next part of the house we'll be renovating!

[Snadger]

What if the Green Manure crop increases the yield of next Spring's crop by, say, 25% - would that justify it?

I've found, the amount of organic matter you get from a green manure crop is negligible compared to the nutrients taken from the soil to rot it down. It slightly raises the organic matter (which on my plot is already quite high) but probably depletes the soil nutrients. I know legumes can add nitro but nitro is water soluble and by the time you come to plant in spring it will have gone.
It does cover the soil and protect it........but so does cardboard or newspaper. It could also play havoc with crop rotation depending on which Green manure you use.
If you take the total yield from keeping various crops in the soil all year (with a quick mucking in between crops) the 25% yield increase for a single crop is still 75% down on what could have been grown in an annual cycle.
All I am saying is there is always two sides to an argument and I'm yet to be convinced.