Double digging


Some farmers still lift potatoes by hand.  Their method was to work along each row lifting the potatoes out of the soil with a broad fork, depositing them neatly to one side of the row, leaving the haulms on the disturbed soil behind the digger.


This is the way many allotment gardeners harvest their spuds.  However, if you have a sticky clay loam soil that sticks to the potatoes it's not always that easy: there are always a few small ones that insist on remaining in the soil.  Have you noticed how self-sown potatoes always shoot up amongst delicate seedlings


A recently suggestion I saw (which has actually been in use many years) is to scoop the potato row to the left, then 'pick' the potatoes into a bucket and thence into a sack.  Then deposit the haulms behind you, after carefully removing even the tiniest of tubers that might grow again.


By the end of each row you'll be left with a hollow littered with haulms and a few uprooted weeds.  Then dig over the hollow, burying the rubbish, effectively double-digging the ground, leaving a layer of vegetation as a sanctuary for worms and quietly rotting away to increase the soil's fertility.


This sounds a good system, I'm going to try that next year.


Two Golden Rules for a weed-free allotment

1. Leave enough room between rows of plants so it's easy to get at the weeds with your hoe.  Cabbages are a good 'cleaning crop'; they're robust and spaced well apart.  As they mature they shade any weeds and inhibit their growth.
2. Hoe the soil before the weeds become noticeable.  Hoeing allows air into the soil, creating a mulching effect which reduced the evaporation of moisture in hot dry weather.  (I was taught 'if you hoe when you don't have to hoe, you'll never have to hoe'!)

Five Fallacies about weeds

1. Potatoes are a 'cleaning crop'.  This is only partly true; potatoes won't get rid of weeds without a lot of effort on your part.  What is true is that you can't grow a decent crop of potatoes on weedy ground.
2. You'll have to get rid of every scrap of weed root.  This is a counsel of perfection that deters many people from gardening.  The fact is that good cultivation - digging and hoeing - kills off the most persistent weeds like couch grass and nettles.  If they do grow again, they're easy to pull up when the soil's been well cultivated.
3. You shouldn't put weeds on a compost heap.  Yes, you should.  The heat generated by a properly made compost heap destroys all weed seeds, rhizomes and bulbils.
4. The only way to deal with weeds is to remove them with their top layer of soil.  This gets rid of any seeds that may have fallen from them.  What an appalling fallacy!  Your allotment's fertility lies in the top few inches of soil and weeds are better adapted than your vegetables to grown in an impoverished soil.  Actually weed seeds best survive deep down in the soil where there's less air; every time you dig your plot you bring next year's weeds to the surface.  Skimming off the surface won't appreciably reduce your weed population but it will reduce your chances of growing a good crop of vegetables.
5. Modern weedkillers make weed control easy.  Weedkillers like Glyphosate have their uses but generally speaking, not on allotments. Spraying involves as much effort as hoeing and weedkillers with their suitable sprayers are expensive to buy.  Furthermore drifting spray might kill the wrong plants, worse still they could kill plants on your neighbours' plots, which won't make for happy gardening.

'New' Shed

Great News! We've just bought a new second-hand shed: 

We're absolutely thrilled as it's much bigger than our previous 'starter' shed bought about two years ago:  

This shed has been sold to a nearby new plotholder family.  

It's an excellent starter shed but we now need more space.

So ...The new shed has three large windows and double opening doors so we can sit in the doorway and look over the allotment and see peeps of Torbay and the sea in the distance: 

As you can see, there's lots of space inside for 'stuff':

Below is the other shed which was on our plot, an ancient one which was already in situ when we took over.  It's going to an allotment site over at Preston.

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This shed has been dismantled, and is being collected soon.

Also in the photo are two beds which have been dug over and covered for the winter. Then there's a bed with raspberries and other soft fruit and strawberries and comfrey in the background.

We've cleared when the old shed was, read to make a turning space. Now the really old shed's going we can reserve that area for compost or make another vegetable bed.

Potatoes

Today we started digging up this year's maincrop potatoes. They were quite variable, some were sparse and tiny, others were sparse and large; the smaller crop than usual may be a reflection of our especially dry summer.   

Many of the potatoes were planted on a new piece of ground which we hadn't had chance to dig over, so I thought potatoes would help sort out the soil.  They certainly did, but only down to a certain depth where the soil is rock-hard. 


We suspect this was because the soil hadn't been cultivated for many years and had become like an earth floor in an old house.  So now this area will need a double-dig before next year's planting.


We had a beautiful Pan Haggerty for supper tonight, made with our own potatoes and onions, served with our own runner beans and spinach.  All we need to do now is make our own cheese and be self sufficient!


Pan Haggerty (as I make it)
Potatoes
Onion
Grated cheese
seasoning (I especially like pepper and thyme)
(anything else you fancy - tomato, peppers, peas, corn, spinach, ham, beaten egg, stock)

• Part cook potatoes and onions.
• Grease dish and layer potatoes, onions, other bits if used, black pepper, cheese. 
• Repeat, ending with layer of cheese.
• Cook in oven or microwave, then brown under grill for a cheap simple supper.
• Variation: don't cook potatoes and onions first and cook longer in the oven.

Leek & Potato Soup

This soup is lovely any time of the year but especially when leeks are plentiful in the garden:

1 lump butter

1 tbsp oil

1 lb leeks, sliced

1 LB Potatoes

1 tbsp flour

2 cups chicken stock

1 bay leaf

1 tsp dried tarragon

1 cup milk

s&p

• Heat butter and oil in pan, add leeks and potatoes
• Cook about 5 mins, stir in flour, pour in stock.
• Add bay leaf and tarragon, cover, cook until ready, adding milk half way through.
• Serve either chunky or whiz.

Serves 4 - 6

Coming Soon: Recipe for Potato Soup