Page 13 - Allotment Gardener Issue 2 2024

5th May: Harvest early morning for the Three Horseshoes pub are spinach, spring onions, chard, salad leaves, radish, leeks and Tokyo turnips
NO DIG
Charles teaching no dig on a weedy allotment in Bristol, hoeing the mostly annual weeds
Charles with multisown radish Rudi on 2nd May
completely, and nor should we try to, because they actually do good work in eating/recycling any decaying and weak vegetation. Even the so- called ‘organic’ pellets do much harm through the poisons in their chelating agents.
No dig maintains a balance because automatically you have populations of slug predators, such as toads and ground beetles, through not damaging them when digging. Here are further tips to reduce slug numbers:
1 Use compost as your main mulch and not
hay, straw or grass. Compost offers fewer hiding places of damp shade, compared to undecomposed materials.
2 Maintain some open space around your plantings to allow drying out by day.
3 Water in the morning rather than evening, so it’s drier before dusk when slugs like to emerge.
4 Have beds for vegetables as far as possible from hedges, bushy shrubs, weedy edges and dry-stone walls.
5 Remove or do not install wooden sides around beds, to reduce slug hiding places, save money, and increase growing area.
6 Keep edges tidy, ensuring that slugs live further away. Pester the allotment landlord to keep the grassy edges mown and keep your own edges tidy - see my YouTube video about that.
7 Water less frequently, say every 3 to 4 days in dry weather instead of every day, to reduce slug populations at surface level. Surfaces which dry between waterings mean less habitat for molluscs.
Harden off?
One way I save a lot of time is by not hardening off. It’s an overstated rule which underestimates plant hardiness and assumes we all have lots
of time and facilities. For example, I once took courgette plants straight from the greenhouse and set them into soil which had ice on, just after the last spring frost on 16th May. It was a glorious sunny day and with a fleece cover on top, the plants grew fine.
A fleece cover helps most tender plants; however, it can also be too hot for some plants in May, so better to judge the need for it according to weather. By the first week of May, we remove fleece covers from plantings of the hardy vegetables set out in early spring.
Hungry gap, time for perennial vegetables
The hungry gap is when leeks finish, overwintered broccoli goes to flower and stored vegetables are eaten or sprouting. New harvests in May are mostly green and leafy, a chance to cleanse the body. Perhaps by late May there can be beetroot and broad beans.
Perennial vegetables come into their own now, especially asparagus and seakale. I don’t
force the latter, because its green leaves are super tasty, and then the plants give lovely broccoli shoots.
Asparagus is good to pick until the solstice. While picking the spears I also pull any weeds, since I am scanning the ground anyway. Plus, you can reduce weeds in asparagus by not growing
it on ridges and having a mulch of compost on top.
New sowings
Climbing beans, kale, Brussels sprouts and autumn cabbage will grow fine harvests from sowing around 10th May. Make also a second sowing of celery and then sow swede at month’s end.
Wait until early June before your second sowing of lettuce, because the plants of your first sowing will continue cropping now and for several weeks. The key is to remove the outer leaves repeatedly, rather than cutting across the top.
Resist the temptation on warm days to set out plants which can be killed by a late frost. Be careful even in early May and consult the local knowledge.
Charles Dowding
Best wait until late May before putting courgettes and tomatoes outside, even when they are ready to transplant.
Homeacres bottom garden view 27th May
Hamed and Lenka in their well-kept no dig allotment in Bristol
For more information, take a look at Charles Dowding’s:
Website: www.charlesdowding.co.uk
No dig YouTube video series: www.youtube.com/CharlesDowding1nodig
Allotment Gardener | Issue 2 2024 | 13