Potatoes in containers, potatoes in the ground and sweetcorn

The Wilja second early potatoes that were sown in containers a couple of weeks ago are coming along very well. Probably due for their first earthing up by the end of the week.

The same can be said for some of the potatoes sown in the ground. These early potatoes were sown about 8 weeks ago in soil that was unknowingly contaminated with the aminopyralid manure in the winter. Anyway, these spuds went in before I knew the herbicide even existed. You can see from this next photo that the leaves on the plants on the left dont look as bad as those on the right so the manure cannot have been spread very evenly. The vast majority are all showing signs though. I cant really be bothered to just dig them up and burn them now as I may just aswell get even the smallest of harvests from them by just leaving them in.

A close up of one of the badly affected plants:

On a happier note, the sweetcorn plants (hardy to aminopyralid) are growing rapidly in the greenhouse:

The carrots in the greenouse have well and truly germinated. The pipe is used for watering – to direct water deeper into the container and hopefully therefore the carrot roots to make longer carrots!

Thanks for reading!

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: