Allotments 4 All

To prevent soil capping can I cover the dug over soil with something called 'loam'? There is a huge pile of the stuff available free of charge on the allotment site?

It seems good quality stuff.

Will it prevent the soil drying out?

It wont hurt my soil, will it?

Get a hold of as much as you can, it beats all your composts and soil improvers hands down.

In fact it is the base material for the 'TRUE' John Innes compost formula.

All I can say is.............lucky you!!

Thanks Tee Gee........I'm going to get a wheelbarrow full of it a day! If only this blinking rain would stop.....grrr!

sorry these are silly Q's but what is loam? and what is capping!! ???

Capping is where the soil surface dries out and goes hard... just the top cm or so.. prevents small seedlings like carrots emerging. Loam is decompsoed plant material... like leaf mould but from grass predominantly.. excellent stuff...  :)

Loam is pretty much good quality topsoil.

Capping is where the surface of the soil goes 'crusty' and dry once dug over- it almost turns to concrete.

Thanks all lol We have a pile of leaves we can help ourselfs to on the plot is that any good?

Can take up to two years to break down... a wire netting cage is ideal to "contain" them...  :)

something for the weekend then ;D

This might explain it better; http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Compost/Compost.htm

Quote from: saddad on April 30, 2009, 16:09:50
Can take up to two years to break down... a wire netting cage is ideal to "contain" them...  :)

Or you can put them in black bin bags (with a few holes punched through) and leave them to break down like that

Quote from: mummybunny on April 30, 2009, 16:14:06
something for the weekend then ;D

It would take too long to break down (and it would be anaerobic) and you would need an awful lot of packets of three to contain a useful amount.... I'd use a wire cage or a traditional allotment "pallet" compost heap..... :D

I am having some success with soil capping using recycling compost.  It is £1 a bag from the local recycling centre.  Some places not very good quality but this quite good.