On the lookout for comfrey…

I have come across a plant on allotment.org.uk called comfrey (never heard of it before). It is recommended every gardener grows a bed of it: its apparently very much under-rated. It sounds increddibly useful and I think I might try and track some down. Briefly, its allotment benefits include:

• acting as a compost activator, enriching the matter and speeding up the process
• as a chicken feed (not that I have any chickens)
• as a potato fertiliser (from the leaves)
• as a mulch and as a liquid feed for tomatoes, runner and dwarf beans

The article I read can be found here. Meanwhile, today, outdoor cucumber plants and celery have found their way to my greenhouse. I am going to begin hardening the runner beans off over the next couple of days. Actually, half are getting hardened off and half are getting potted on and placed back in the coldframe for another couple of weeks incase there is any failure. I anticipate getting the fleece out once or twice in the next month as I know its probably too early to be completely sure there are going to be no more frosts but the plants are very potbound!

Busy day.

Looking back, I have completed a lot in the back garden today.

It kicked of at around lunchtime when I was brought some seedlings by my grandparents. Broad beans, beet leaf and swede. An set of onions and maincrop potatoes were also in the box.

Apart from the swede, everything from this selection went into the ground today, and more!!!

The beans were quite important. Having seemingly lost the majority of my initial crop to that damn aminopyralid we needed to get some in the ground. Thankfully they are in position now with a packet of Jubilee Hystor sown alongside them.

I also sowed some F1 sweetcorn and some salad bowl lettuce that are now in the coldframe and a couple of rows of ‘onward’ peas in the recently replenished raised bed.

Hopefully its third time lucky with the carrots! Another attempt has been made today at growing them – ‘early nantes’ – in containers. Previous failings included sowing too early and having seeds fail to germinate and sowing with traces of manure in the soil. The carrots are still in containers but well away from the raised beds! I intend so set-up another container of them towards the middle of May and then a couple more after that to ensure successional cropping!

Looks like its going to be another busy day tomorrow aswell; plenty of jobs to do.

I’ve got a heck of a lot on at University at the moment as its coming towards the end of term and exams are looming. Although gardening, which I seem to be into more than ever this year, is helping me cope with the stress, I cant help but feel its helping me a little bit too much and becoming a distraction. I need to get some work done!

This blog really is becoming a diary isnt it? I hope its of interest to some people though, it certainly will be for me to look back on later in the year.

UPDATE:
Forgot to mention. Have now decided its not worth the effort or money to replace all the soil in all the contaminated raised beds. Im just going to grow plants that tolerate the conditions in them and then thouroughly dig them over throughout the winter and then see where the situation stands. Thats what the sweetcorn and onions are for. I must make sure I remember to burn the plants at the end of the season instead of composting as I am reliably informed, through the forums on http://www.allotment.org.uk that this will just prolong the problem and re-introduce the herbicide back into the soil.

27.4.09 update

Tasks completed today include:

The removal of the soil from 1 of 4 contaminated raised beds,

this was then refilled with some left over soil conditioner.

The infected soil ended up here (hopefully it won’t affect the apple trees):

…there’s so much more to come!

Second early potatoes, ‘charlotte’ went in this evening into a new bed.

Plans for the next couple of days include carrying out the finishing touches to the revitalised raised bed! A second attempt at sowing peas and carrots will be made.

(I am conscious this blog may be turning into more of a diary)

The work begins…

I am about to begin the task of replacing the soil in the contaminated raised beds. I estimate around 3 tonnes needs to be shifted further down the garden. It is my goal to have second early potatoes out of the ground on time for mid July!

Introduction

Hi all!

I decided to set up this blog to document the happenings within my back garden. I am keen on growing my own veg. I intend to record what I get up to.

This blog is started at a rather turbulent time in my vegetable gardening career! The soil that my produce in at the moment is suspected of being contaminated.

The issue was raised a couple of days ago when I noticed the leaves on my broad beans were curled up. I posted a topic on a popular forum asking for advice on what to do. The bed that I am growing these broad beans in is a new one and I thought, as the soil used to make it was from a different part of the garden, it might be too acidic or something. If you have a look at the post you will notice that a few Q+A’s later, I was informed that it was likely that the manure I had used to fertilise the soil in the winter was contaminated with something called ‘Aminopyralid Herbicide’.

After reading this, naturally, I carried out some research on the matter and have since become somewhat something of an expert on the topic.

It appears that since 2006, the newly introduced herbicide has caused a fair few problems for allotment holders and gardeners. Infected manure is being taken off farmers and used on veg plots and rose beds up and down the country. It affects the development of several varieties of vegetable/salad crops such as:

• Carrots
• Lettuce
• Potatoes
• Beans
• Peas

(See here and here for more info.)

And all my plots are covered with it!

As you can tell, I am somewhat annoyed. Unless I want to wait 4 years to grow stuff again, I need to replace the soil. That is what I intend to do!

In the meantime – here are some photos of how it has affected the broad beans and the potatoes: