Onions are sprouting and so is the garlic. I have sowed beetroot, parsnips, lettuce and peas in trays of potting compost in the polytunnel and I will plant up the rest of the containers in a few weeks.
We also have potatoes 🥔 chitting in their net bags on the book case in the front room. Domino one of our smallholder cats is not very happy that they are there because he likes to have a cat nap on top of the bookcase.
I filled two barrels with fresh fym and added a few inches of soil. Hopefully these will be hot 🔥 beds and generate heat to force crops in a few weeks time.
My next job is to go collecting seaweed from a beach which is about 5 minutes from where we live. The beach owner allows me to collect seaweed from their beach.
There are supposed to be 50 trace elements in seaweed and it's one natural fertilizer that contains no weeds. Unlike fym that always adds some weeds to the veg plot.
Couch grass and nettles are the pernicious weeds that like my plot. At least I don't have ground elder or Mares Tail.
What pernicious weeds to you have on your allotment or veg patch? Do you use weedkiller? I don't and never have used them on my veg plot in the countryside next to the sea.
I don't use weed killer. We do suffer from couch grass and dock plants with their deep roots. I like Keir Starmer. He is the reason I re-joined The Labour Party. There has to be pragmatism or Labour would remain a debating society.
ReplyDeleteGood on you YP. I was once a Young Socialist Secretar of my local Labour Party. Someone once said to me you can only fit so many Tories in one party. Brexit is a disaster and Labour should say it is not agree to muddle agreements orchestrated by the Tories.
ReplyDeleteSorry for typos. Cheap Lidl reading glasses.
ReplyDeleteWe have "maintenance men" who come around spraying weedkiller on the lawns and path edges a couple of times a year. I live in a complex of about 110 units/flats of government subsidised housing, so have no say in the grounds maintenance. the tiny patch next to my unit which I have claimed as "my garden" holds no weeds thanks to heavy applications of fallen leaves each autumn. Occasionally something will pop up from a seed dropped by a bird and I just pull it up as soon as it is big enough to get hold of.
ReplyDeleteIt's proven River that weedkiller like Roundup cause Cancer but you can still buy them. I was once in a farm store and a man asked for weedkiller to apply to the weeds on his potatoes.
DeleteI don't mind mind the clover in the winter and the nasturtiums but there's another weed that's sticky and creeps along the ground strangle holding everything in its way. So far I've got it under control by pulling it out. But my garden is small.
ReplyDeleteThe weeds in the back garden, hubbies domain, are huge this year. They've totally loved the warm winter and occasional rain. He got a young Pakistani lad to pull them all out last week.
Hi Linda . You could plant up the back garden with ground cover plants or even grass seed or even put down a membrane and pave it or spread gravel? Or even grow vegetables in it.
ReplyDeleteJealousy here - we have a few green shoots on the onion sets in the little egg-carton style trays in the greenhouse. Seeds going into trays in greenhouse next weekend - we hope.
ReplyDeleteI have leeks seedlings sprouting this morning Tigger. Been digging my potato trenches this morning whilst it's still dry. Planning to collects some seaweed this week. Have big pile of fym but it's too fresh to use this season. Will apply some in Autumn. Also took Osteospermum cuttings this morning.
ReplyDeleteYou have a very popular and useful blog. Thanks for your work :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Gambler.
ReplyDelete