I cannot do much on the allotment at the moment which is a little frustrating back problems.  I am still taking down the 4 silver birch in the garden though.  The way that I do this is to dig around the trunk and expose all the roots or as many as I can.  After this, I tie two ropes as high as I can onto the trunk to guide the tree as it falls.  Next I cut through all of the roots which is not a particularly arduous task if you have a sharp bow saw.  I also put a little oil on the blade to make it even easier.  With my son holding one of the ropes to steady the tree and prevent it from falling in the wrong direction we both pull the tree over.  We cut it up into 1metre chunks and then I take it to the allotment to bury.  As I have said in previous diary entries, the burying of logs and brushwood has a long history in Central and South American agricultural culture.

I call this my Montezuma method.

I am planting my sweet peas for next year now.  They are being planted in peat free compost with a little  myhchorrhizal fungi mixed in it.  Last year, when I did this, the plants grew very well and although some of the sweet peas did not make an association there was a substantial number that did.   I am putting them into the tray dividers.  It is much easier to deal with plants when you use these plastic dividers.  The plants come out with thier little block of soil and the roots are not disturbed.  I could not find any of the bottomless pots in the garden centers at the moment.  I will transplant them when I can get some.  I am planting more than I usually do because several people have asked me if I could plant some for them.

The varieties that I have chosen this year are.

                Chatsworth                                                             Mollie Rilestone

1. Chatsworth for frangrance Thompson and Morgan
2. Molie Rilestone  for  fragrance Thompson and Morgan
3. Lilac Ripple for  fragrance  Thompson and Morgan
4. Royal Wedding for  fragrance Thompson and Morgan
5. Percy Thrower for  fragrance Thompson and Morgan
6. Flamingo Unwins
7. David Unwin Unwins
8. Norman Wisdom Unwins
9. Castle of Mey Unwins
10. Rosy Dawn Unwins
11. Peacock for  fragranceUnwins
12. Lipstick Unwins
13. Red Arrow Unwins
14. King Size Navy Blue for  fragrance Thompson and Morgan.
15. Blue Ripple for  fragrance Thompson  and Morgan
16. America fragrant  old variety 1896 Thompson  and Morgan
17. Miss Wilmott Fragrant old  variety 1901 Thompson  and Morgan
18. Cathy  for  fragrance Unwins
19. Appleblossom Thompson  and Morgan

I took down a 30 ft silver birch on Saturday.  I dig around the trunk exposing the roots and then cut through them with a bow saw.  My son and I then pulled it over.  This is the only way I know of easily removing the stump.  The roots are then left in the soil to rot.  We cut the branches off and put them into bags - I like to cut them up quite small with the secateurs.  John cut the trunk into 1 metre sections.  We put the whole lot into the car and I took it to the allotment.  I dug down about 4 feet and into the subsoil and buried the whole lot.  It is remarkable what you can bury in a big hole.  The subsoil was replaced and I got several barrow loads of grass mowings and put them in the hole too.  I covered the grass with topsoil. This is what I call serious Montezuma method.

The reason why I am taking down the silver birch trees is that they are taking all the water from the top soil in the garden and very little will grow well near them.  They are getting quite old now and I have several younger ones to replace them.  I only have four more to take down now.  They will all be buried in the subsoil of the allotment.

I doubt if anyone out there believes that I do this and can still grow substantial vegetables.  While I agree that woody material will remove nitrogen from the soil in decomposition, I do not find that it adversely affects the vegetables that I grow.  Maybe I would get even bigger crops it I did not do this kind of thing.  I doubt it though.  Trees have relatively large amounts of nutrients locked up inside them.  Why send this up in flames when you burn them?  I would rather have the nutriments.

Doing all this deep digging means that the onion bed is not finished yet.  I will still have to bury the other silver birches.  I could not leave the onions any longer so I have put them in pots in the greenhouse.  I put a little mychorrhizal fungi in the pots as well to encourage association.  I also planted my garlic and shallots in pots as well.

I have started to plant the sweet peas today.  I have put them in those plastic sectioned seed trays.  I planted about 100 seeds and I have forgotten all their names.  Percy Thrower was one and Royal Wedding was another.  I will look and see what they are tomorrow because I don’t want to go out to the green house now. Its dark and cold out there.

I didn’t have time to take down the runner beans although I was going to put them into the hole I had dug in the onion bed.  I will do this next weekend.

I need to put some green manure on this area of the allotment.  I will dig it in during March next year.  I don’t want to make this area too fertile because I will be putting my brassicas in this ground.  If you make the ground too fertile the brussel sprouts start to blow (open out) and they do not make tight buds.  Also the purple sprouting will flower early.  I will put blood fish and bone on the cauliflowers and cabbage with possibly some chicken manure as well.  They will benefit from the extra nitrogen.

Everyone is asking about my green manure that I planted two weeks ago.  It is a mixture of annual meadow grass and tares.  It is a good mixture adding both body and nitrogen to the soil.

I am still cropping beetroot and carrots; however I am leaving the parsnips until the first frost.

The rocket and American cress has come well and I am looking forward to cropping that during the winter.  Most of the strawberries I moved are doing well.  These were all weeded at the weekend – I was amazed that the weeds had come back after I removed weeds last week.  Brassicas are doing well if small.  Brussel sprouts are about half the size I usually grow them.  This new soil that they gave us is not worth the trouble.  I am thinking of moving my grapes onto this. They like really poor soil.

Getting an immense crop of maize this year.  Another example of global warming.  When I started gardening over 40 years ago we would never have planted maize, cucumber, pumpkin, tomato and courgette outside.  Nowadays I do not give it a second thought.