Page 36 - ALG Issue 2 2021

readers articles Phacelia Tanacetifolia
Thanks for your article in a recent magazine about the plant Phacelia Tanaceetifolia, which I did not recognise at first, until I started to read the article and realised that it is included in my green manure crop which I grow most years.
The first time I saw this plant growing was back in the mid 1990s when I lived in Herefordshire. My neighbour’s organic smallholding was just aglow with this blue flower, and covered in bees, which was a surprise as it was September, but great as we had six beehives on our land, and I was just learning to be a keeper.
Some years later, now living in Kent and having my first allotment for many years, it was the first plant I used to improve the soil.
As I am 80 now, I have tried to do small experiments each year on my plot to make the jobs easier. Last year I used small flowerpots in-between my crops to hold extra water instead of plastic bottles. This worked very well, but
with extra beneficial results I was not
expecting, as I found four or more black beetles in each of my pots; it seems they could enter and leave through the holes at the bottom very easily. Last year I had made a space on my plot
to over-winter my weeds to rot down under a plastic sheet and used it in the spring to earth up my potatoes.
Another new idea I tried was to collect my leaves in the autumn as normal, but instead of storing them for a year in black bags, because they take a long time to decompose as I don’t have a lawnmower to use, I decided to copy nature and started to put them all over my plot, to feed my worms and stop the frost making my soil cold, helping to keep my soil warm for my onions and strawberries and give them an early start.
I am still spreading my leaves around my plot, so as my bin becomes empty, I will use it as a storage place for my compost. This will give me a space at the rear of my plot which I can use as a cold frame in the spring for the first time. My compost can then be used from a bin closer to my crops.
Watering my sweetcorn patch has become more difficult, so last year I used a plastic downpipe about one and a half meters long, which enabled me to reach the whole area with my watering can down the pipe, while still standing on the path.
Let’s hope all our efforts will bring forth another big harvest this year!
Eileen Blythe
Hawkinge Allotments Kent
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The winner for ALG 1 2021 is:
Julia Thorley for ‘Put your back into it’
36 Allotment and Leisure Gardener