I tidied a garden yesterday for my brother and then I tended the two family graves.
Then in the afternoon we took two of the dogs to the beach near where we live in the countryside next to the sea.
The two dogs paddled and swam and I collected 6 fertilizer("bag manure") bags of seaweed.
It's a free resource from the sea, weed free and said to contain over 50 trace elements. Anyone else collect it and use it in their veg plot?
I spread the six bags and I had exactly enough for this years new potatoes plot. In winter the fym will be rotted enough to spread over the veg plot. You don't need to use man-made chemicals to grow your vegetables.
Our ancestors were organic or natural farmers for thousands of years long before it became middle class and trendy.
I know someone here who collects seafood and puts it round his olive trees. I rarely see seaweed on our beaches. It's quite common on other islands. Here I think it must only come in after a storm.
ReplyDeleteI would imagine will give the olive trees a good feed and they give a fine crop. Someone I know recommends putting seaweed around Brassicas to keep the slugs and snails away. The do not like the salt.
ReplyDeleteOoooh so F isjealous of all your seaweed and probably straight form clean sea too. We pick ours up in a harbour (Langstone) and worry a bit about pollutants. Do you get those hoppy little bugs in your seaweed? The hens love them. Someone we know used to put the seaweed in onion bags and drop the bags in the hen run for a few days before spreading it on the garden. They would kick the bags over every day and the hens would dive in an eat all those springtail things that hopped out. xxx Mr T PS (from F) did you know that if you get it fresh after a storm that flat-bladed seaweed you have there is nice to eat? We used to dry it on the clothes line, chop it into crisps-sized bits and sizzle it in light oil before eating it sprinkled with sesame seed. MMMM.
ReplyDeleteI just Googled Langstone Tigger. It looks a nice place. Yes I noticed the hoppy little bugs in the seaweed. I have wondered about eating seaweed or even feeding it to livestock. There's tons of free stuff out there isn't there just.
ReplyDeleteGiven we have seen sheep and deer and cattle on the beaches eating seaweed we guess your livestock would welcome it as a bit of seasoning in their diet. There is an island in the Hebrides where the sheep apparently survive on nothing BUT seaweed (having been fenced out of the available pasture space and confined to the beaches).
DeleteThanks Tigger. I know Japanese people eat seaweed. I must check out feeding it to livestock. Thanks.
DeleteThe trouble with seaweed is that it is covered with salt so before spreading it on the garden you should soak it overnight in your bath or rinse it off in your washing machine. My helpful gardening tips are free of charge. In the past, before commercial fertilisers appeared, people would commonly use human waste (i.e. shit) to enrich their vegetable plots or farmland.
ReplyDeleteIf you spread seaweed on your veg plot before planting time YP. Winter rains will wash off any salt. They called human waste night soil and dustmen would collect it from London backyards and gardens and take it to the growing fields of the Garden of England in Kent. I am sure a lot of sewage could be made into organic fertilizers. In countries like Denmark they produce biogas and generate electricity from offal from slaughterhouses and buy slurry from farmers. You can buy calcified seaweed from garden centres.
ReplyDeleteThe Danes have some truly offal ideas so why are they called Great Danes? I haven't forgiven them for invading Yorkshire in the eighth century.
DeleteYou should thank them, your square jaw and light coloured hair speaks of Danish ancestry.
DeleteThey were also in these parts in the ninth century. If you took your metal detector to one of the beaches you might find an old Carlsberg tin. Hows that for a link to the subject of your blog today YP?
ReplyDeleteIt's very clever. You are the Bamber Gascoigne of Blogworld Dave!
DeleteI have only been on here and in the camera office C and A store YP. University Challenge and Bamber have been on four terrestrial tv channels.
DeleteP has just bought some potatoes to chit. Perhaps I should send him down to the beach for some seaweed.
ReplyDeleteHi JayCee. Ours are chitting in the front room. Seaweed collecting can be fun and it's free. Hope you are well?
ReplyDeleteBeautiful blog
ReplyDeleteThank you Rajani.
ReplyDeleteWe don't, but a friend living in a seaside village has a fabulous garden and she does. But she leaves the buckets full of water until they 'mature'. She told me the fresh seaweed burns her plants.
ReplyDeleteHi Virginia. When the heavens open again here next week the seaweed will get a good wash. Thanks for commenting.
DeleteI would love to gather seaweed for my garden if I had one, but I'm not sure it's allowed here in the city limits which is where our beaches are. And there is often a fair amount of washed up rubbish in it. I chopped up a sweet potato this afternoon, ready for roasting for my dinner and wondered how hard it is to grow them? I won't try at all until I see how my pitiful pot of sprouted potatoes does.
ReplyDeleteYes you do see lots of rubbish on beaches everywhere River. My seed potatoes are chitting well and soon I will plant some in bags in the polytunnel next week.
ReplyDelete