ruminate vb. to chew (the cud)
Here we are in the middle of October and this is how my allotment is looking. The plot next to mine (the one behind me) is all but bare, just some cabbages and Brussels sprouts, the rest cleared and dug over. This is Cornwall; it is not natural for ground to be bare in winter.…
It is very frustrating that I have so many problems with direct sowing on my allotment. Most things seem to germinate then disappear, presumably due to nocturnal predation by slugs. I dare say there are other culprits too, voles, snails maybe, but it hardly matters. I managed to grow carrots successfully this year by direct…
Much is made in certain quarters of the merits of getting early crops out of the way so that a second crop can occupy the same area for the remainder of the year. It doesn't seem to work out that way on my plot. There are overwintered crops like spinach, chard and brassicas that are…
I’m in the middle of reading James Rebanks’ ‘English Pastoral'. A chapter back he was expressing a concept which struck me as particularly insightful. “the field” he says, “is the base layer on which our entire civilisation is built”. It is not a natural thing, it has been created by land clearance, perhaps thousands of…
I was chatting over the gate with another plot-holder on my allotment this morning; he was telling me about rebuilding his compost bays, I was telling him about getting rid of mine for good a year ago. We agreed that it is good soil that grows decent crops, not a tidy plot. At least we…
I have been an adherent of a no-dig philosophy on my allotment for around six years now and have written the occasional piece about my experiences. I’ve also written several other pieces that are still in the drafts folder on WordPress, if they even made it that far. Much of the time it all feels…
Continue reading ➞ Soil, the never-ending no-dig, no compost, green manure experiment. 14/11/2021
I’ve had my allotment since April 2013 and have been a committed no-digger since about two years in. I could see what was happening to my soil, the good structure (aggregation into granules) that it had when I started very quickly started to break down. I stopped digging and divided the plot into beds about…
Continue reading ➞ Soil, getting it good and keeping it that way. 8/9/2021
Eight months ago I spread the compost from my heaps onto my allotment and resolved not to make any more. I would simply shred everything that came my way and spread it back on the ground. I wrote a blog about it at the time. It seemed a slightly radical course to take and I…
A few years ago I took on an allotment. It was a new site and had been operating only a year when I started; I took over a plot that had proved too much for the first tenant. At the start it had been shallowly ploughed, turning the grass over but not effectively burying it.…
It's a funny old place the internet, full of information about absolutely everything and providing an equal opportunity for complete idiots and world experts to put forward their views as if they were of similar value. The distinction between fact and fiction has never been fuzzier. On almost every topic under the sun you will…
garden ruminations 