Allotment update.

During the summer I was up to my plot at least every other day, now it’s more like every other week. Such crops as I have still standing seem to include several that have not covered themselves in glory this year, rusty leeks, piddling little parsnips, moth eaten spinach. Cauli’s were not bad, but you only want so much.

A good part of the ground is empty and has been mulched with compost to protect it over the winter. Mulch does prevent damage to soil structure from winter rain but not loss of nutrients from leaching. Green manure would do that but then needs digging in, which conflicts with my no-dig ambitions, or smothering, which takes time I don’t have in spring, or spraying, which I am not going to do.

My compost is weedy. It is made from material from various sources, some of which are full of weed seeds. The quantities I have mean it doesn’t get hot enough to kill the weeds effectively, so where I mulched a few weeks back I now have weeds. I don’t want them going to seed and I don’t want them to get so big I have to dig them out; other than that they are holding onto nutrients and providing further protection for the soil. On closer inspection, there are a few that, even in November, are threatening to flower and seed as very small plants. Annual meadow grass, bittercress, pearlwort, groundsel, chickweed  and petty spurge are all included. Then there were grasses, dandelions and buttercups that needed out while still small and manageable.

I weeded that bed. There is another that needs doing too. I spread more compost too. Everything gets shredded so it breaks down quickly, I will try to get more spread in the next couple of weeks, it will do far more good on the ground than in the heap. Because a significant part of its volume comes from shredded leaves and twigs, its nutrient content is not great, so I will apply fertiliser at a moderate rate in the new year. Some of the shortcomings I’m seeing in what I’ve grown this year are for lack of nutrition.

I find myself deviating from the no-dig template in its classic form but consider myself to be responding to my local conditions in as constructive a way as I can.