Having a long running "debate" with my grandmother about the soil on my lottie. Most of it was rotavated by council, rest has been dug over by hand. Granted at the moment, it's a bit clumpy but I'm hoping the frost will break it down a bit for me. Argument is this.....my grandmother says that it needs to be extremely fine, almost like breadcrumbs for me to plant or the seeds won't take and will be nicked by the birds etc. My argument is that it hasn't been dug for two years, it's not going to get that fine this year, but the planting (particularly with the huge amounts of potatoes that I'm putting in) should help that process get underway. She's suggesting that I grow everything on in the greenhouse (which is only 6'4") and plant out that way instead of putting seeds etc in. The soil is actually in pretty good condition with tonnes of worms in there, my only problem is the bits of dead grass running all the way through it, but on a 50ftx20ft lottie, it would be almost impossible to get that out to be honest.
Any ideas/comments?
The potatoes will be fine. Anything with bulbs or large seeds e.g. Broad beans, beans etc should also be ok You could make a trench and put fine compost in it and plant into that with other things. My soils like yours and some things didn't seem to have a problem but I removed heavy clumps of soil where I was sowing. I plant a lot of seedlings to get round it but radishes and spring onions grew ok from seed on soil like this.
Just gone through all my seeds now and the plan is this....
Early Nantes carrots, potatoes, leeks, parsnips are going to be directly sown into the ground and covered with netting.
Beetroot, onions, main crop carrots, cauli, lettuce, sprouts, broccoli, cucumber, peas, sweetcorn and beans I'm going to start off in greenhouse (although I'm still considering the beans/peas) and then coldframe them before planting out.
Having looked at the packets, its saying to plant out runner beans/pea in June which seems rather late to me - is that right?
Figure if I do it this way, then I'll have a bit more time to get the soil finer for the later plantings.
With the Runner Beans it depends where you are Posie... they really hate frost so here in Derby it is rare to put themout before June as Late Frosts are possible in May.
:-\
Ah I see. Well I'm right on the south wales coast, not far from Cardiff so our frosts aren't too bad, but think I'll wait and see on that one. Cheers for that.
I grow as much as possible in modules and then plant out. Only things like carrot & parsnip go in as seed. But beans & peas, leeks, brassicas, lettuce, flowers, even beetroot, get sown under glass.
It's far too early for runner & french beans, though broad beans can go in soon. I sow a tray-ful very late Jan (took them to the plot today to sit in the cold GH there). And I'll sow some early peas in lengths of guttering in the next day or two, ready to plant out at the end of the month. But leave maincrop peas until later.
If you plant out everything as early as possible, not only is there a danger of frost, but they'll all come early and you won't have anything later. Quite a lot of crops have to be sown in succession.
The first year I was on my plot, the soil, such as it was at the time, was mostly large lumps. Things grew, even if the crops weren't brilliant. Dig in all the organic matter you can, and it can only improve.
Glad I'm not the only one who doesn't see clumpy soil as a major problem, it's really a case of just experimenting this year to see what works where.
I've got some early broad beans so I'm going to put those in once the frost's eased off, just sown the rest of the stuff into some propagators in the greenhouse and I plan to plant them out over 2 to 4 weeks when it's, time to make sure I get a good succession of crops.
Hi posie,
Spring onions, radish etc that grow more on the surface of the soil are fine growing in your type of soil, which is somewhat like mine but any root vegtables, carrots, parsnips etc ( that grow into the soil and work their way down, I firstly put compost (bought by the bag even soil from a growbag will do) in the row, then sow seeds and then cover with more compost, it certainly worked for me last year. I certainly didn't have the hit and miss of germination as other years.
Good luck,
Sinbad
I`m down in South Wales and I leave the sowing of beans till the last week of May to be safe
That's good to know powerspade. Do you sow them direct, or bring them on in greenhouse first?