As you can see, I have dug down three spits so that I can fill the trench with brush and shredded material.  You can see the green manure in the background and some of the shallots and winter onions.  As I dug out each spit I mixed the soil using soil cone heaps.  This was the area where the apple tree was and I have not dug down this far for over 15 years.  However, I must have dug down here in the past because I found two of my old sandles at the bottom of the trench.  There was also some unrotted sawdust horse manure and leaves that I must have burried a long time ago.  This shows that carbon can be sequested in the soil for a long time.  Behind the spade and fork you can see the brushwood from the silver birch trees I buried here.  And if you are wondering where the apple tree is, that’s under there too.  I dug down another spit with the fork but I didn’t take this soil out of the trench.  I was able to put four barrowloads of shreddings into  the trench.

    

  As you can see it is mostly laylandii.  Most people would avoid using this on their allotment because it has such a bad reputation for making the soil acid and incapable of growing anything.  This far down though, I don’t think that it will have any effect on the top soil.  It will help me to keep the soil drained though.

    

After filling the trench I put back the third spit soil mixing it thoroughly with itself.  Next, I put two or three barrowloads of leaves in the trench.

The second spit soil goes in next and finally the top soil.  You can see the soil heap cone that I have used to mix the soil with itself.  I level out the soil afterwards.  And that is all there is to it.

 Not more on terra preta Tone!!!!

I was thinking, if the terra preta is reliant on Amazonian or rain forest species of fungi and earth worm, would we be able to replicate this kind of soil in our temperate climate?

Will we just be a poor copy of the soil in the rain forests or is there a possibility that this soil is replicable. We would have to substitute fungi and earthworm for those that can survive the temperate climate.

If we can then this is a remarkable resource that can be carried around the world. If not then whoever is attempting to make terra preta – and the Germans seem to be ahead of the pack in this department – is doomed to failure.

I think that increasing fertility of soil with the use of charcoal may be as far as we can go…

Here is a good reminisce. My allotment on 2nd February 1982 just after I had taken it over. I had cleared and dug almost half of the allotment.  You can see I am skim digging.  The weeds that I have skimmed off were buried in the trench.  I took out a spit deep of subsoil, left it on the trackway and put in the weeds.  I took out a spit deep of subsoil further on in the trench and covered the weeds leaving a hole which was filled with weeds.  This is carried on until the end of the trench when I fetched the subsoil on the trackway and covered the weeds at the end of the trench.

  

February 1982                                                                                                                                                 From a similar viewpoint February 2010

The view from the other end.

   

 

And the soil in February 1982.  This is a typical stagnogley soil with clay enriched subsoil.  This type of soil has reduced Iron II compounds because waterlogged soils do not let air flow through them very well.  Iron II (Fe²⁺) compounds are grey or bluey grey in colour.  As this was a less permeable heavy clay and waterlogged soil,  it is grey although there is some oxidation where air has managed to get into the soil and this is where it has a mottled reddish brown colour.  This soil profile is called a Bg horizon.

Needless to say that it is not like this now.  As you can see, the bluey grey Iron II soil has been replaced by a more homogenous brown colour soil and there is obvious signs of organic matter even at the third spit - 90cm level.  With oxygen from the air the iron compounds give the soil a brown colour.  So soils that are free draining, open and porous tend to be redish brown. I think that I have won the water logging battle in this area of the allotment.

This photograph is from the bottom end of the allotment in 1982 looking south.  Eric and I have not yet put in the path across the end of the allotment.  I found rhubarb under this grass and I have still got plants of it now. 

 

This is what the soil profile looked like in 1982.

This is a typical stagnogley soil with clay enriched subsoil.  This type of soil has reduced Iron II compounds because waterlogged soils do not let air flow through them very well. With oxygen from the air the iron compounds give the soil a brown colour.  So soils that are free draining, open and porous tend to be redish brown.  Iron II (Fe²⁺) compounds are grey or bluey grey in colour.  As this was a less permeable heavy clay and waterlogged soil  it is grey although there is some oxidation where air has managed to get into the soil and this is where it has a mottled reddish brown colour.  This soil profile is called a Bg horizon.

Needless to say, it does not look like that now.  Since adding loads of organic matter to the soil, draining it and double digging, I have about 4ft of dark brown topsoil - but still on clay.  It produces adequate vegetables but not as big or as healthy as I would like.  Looks like I will have to continue to work hard.

The bottom half allotment now has water on it after a very wet summer.  I will have to spend some time this winter draining and raising this area too. 

Now it has lost my blog! I still cannot make comments on my own blog site. 

If you want to see what the allotment is like it was in July you can click on allotment photographs either below this blog or to the right of it. 

I am cropping the allotment and removing plants when they have gone over so it looks quite untidy at the moment. 

I will put on more photographs when they start to remove the soil from the lower part of my allotment due to the benzo(a)pyrene.  I am going to use this as an opportunity to add some horse manure to this part of the allotment.Â

I have just found this photograph of my allotment in 1982 when I first started gardening.  It was the 2nd of February and very cold.  The grasses, nettles and other weeds had died down and it was relatively easy to dig when it was like this. 

Not very many of the allotments were being done in 1982.  Eric had taken on his next to mine but I had to clear the trackway to get the tractor down.  This is looking north. 

I was skim digging the whole width of the allotment.  I  double dug, ie dug down two spits (spade blades) and then buried the weed turf under the clay.  In order to do this, I took out some of the clay at the other end of the trench and put it in a pile on the trackway.  I filled the hole with turfs and then covered with the clay further along the trench.  This meant that the weeds were at least 3 spits down.  As you cannot skim off all the stolons of weed grasses like couch and nettles, there was some regeneration of weeds but not that much.  I worked along the trench filling the holes with weed turfs until  I reached the trackway and used the clay pile to cover the weeds in the last hole.

With this amount of digging you would think that I had drained the allotment really well.  However, at this time I did not know there was a spring on the allotment.  I had to put in two land drains and raise the allotment 18 inches in order to be able to work the soil.  I had forgotten how difficult it was to work the allotment in the early years.Â

For my 100th post I thought that I would put some photographs of the allotment on here.  Yesterday I got my first handful of beans off the Aintree runner beans.  I got a couple of buckets of sweet peas off as well.  That is why there are not many on them.   The weather is very overcast but not cold.  22^oC in the shade - not that there is much sun today.   

As you can see the allotment is beginning to become very green and there has been a lot of growth.  This lower half allotment is new this year.  I had to clear quite a lot of weed off it before I started to plant.  I double dug it all right up to the Onward peas. 

Comfrey growing well in the foreground and beans and sweet peas in the background.  You can’t see the pumpkins between the beans and the comfrey.  This is number 26. Number 25 starts by the shed. 

Carrots are under the enviromesh, beetroot next then two rows of annual flowers as companion planting. 

Then there are 10 lines of leeks interspersed with companion planting. 

You can just see the pumpkin in the foreground. 

Courgettes are big but not producing yet.  Lots of flowers but no courgettes.  Kelvedon Wonder peas are nearly finished now but you can see the Early Onward in the background starting to fruit.  Running alongside the sweet corn is a row of nigelia as a companion plant.  The shed is on Eric’s allotment not mine.  The plum tree is mine though. 

Sweet is corn growing well.

Please note that the weeds are on a public path between allotment 25 and 26.  Number 25 is my old allotment.  Behind the rhubarb there is a new blackberry plant and along the supports are a new line of raspberries.  If you look at the post that you can see going into the ground, there are two grape cuttings that are growing really well.   In the background you can see Florence fennel, radish, rocket, lambs lettuce and spinach.  There is also poached egg plant.  Not much yellow on these flowers though.   There are quite a few apples on the Granny Smith.  You can see how much I have raised the allotment using concrete slabs.  In the far background there are the brassicas.

And here they are winter cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, cabbage and broccoli.   I have left the nets over them to keep the cabbage white caterpillars off them.  I will have to drag some more soil around the stems at the weekend because they are getting quite big now and might start falling over.  I don’t really want to stake them because I have used all my stakes for the peas. 

The Sapo and Sante potatoes.  There are some Kestrel potatoes in the foreground and these are starting to go over now.  The tops look good but this is no indication of how big the potatoes are. 

The Kestrel potatoes are just going over.  I will have to start to harvest them next week.  I will plant Caliente mustard here after they have been taken out.  In the background you can just make out the blackcurrent bushes.  They have cropped very well this year. 

In the foreground are the Meteor peas that replaced the winter onions.  In the background are the onions interspersed with tagetes and a row of chamomile as companion planting. 

 

The onions are growing much better now but there is still some distortion in the foliage.  You can see two lines of parsnips in the background.  Not many weeds at the moment. 

This is what you can do with double digging, horse manure, chicken manure and comfrey liquid. 

I will be raising the new allotment up as high as the old one.  I will use turf, leaves and lawn mowings initially but will also continue to use horse and cow muck.�

Someone has made a right cockup with the seeds of one of my sweet peas.  I have pink on cream Oxford Blue sweetpeas.  I don’t think that is quite right.  Mr Unwin sells all the right sweet pea seeds but not necessarily in the right packet.  Still I have a 1961 first edition of Mr Chas Unwin’s “Amature Gardening Handbook No 36 Sweet Pea” which I recieved on my 10th birthday and has been my sweet pea bible ever since.  So they cannot be that bad.  Also I have been growing Unwin’s sweet peas most years since then. 

The runner beans are climbing the poles quickly.

You can see the sweet peas coming too.  The carrots are under the enviromesh. Next to them are the beetroot a couple of rows of annual flowers and four rows of leeks. 

You might just be able to see that something is eating my beetroot.  Peas and sweet corn coming quite well. 

Lettuce, rocket and spinach that we are eating now. 

The brassicas with the nets on to keep the pigeons off them.

These are the Sante and Sapo spuds.

And these are the kestrel spuds.

You can see the blackcurrent bushes and the raspberries as well. 

My struggling onions.  You can see the interplanting with tagetes.  The onions are starting to fall over again and if you look carefully you can see that some of them are beginning to get contorted foliage.  Classic signs of eelworm.  However, these are the best onions I have had for years. 

You can see how I have raised the old allotment up with concrete paving slabs.  To finish with my pride and joy the sweet peas. 

This is the soil that they are going to replace because of the benzo (a) pyrene.�

Went up to the allotment straight after work again.  I decided just to do some watering because the cold northeasterly wind was still blowing.  I watered the onions, lettuce, rocket, spinach, fennel, lambs lettuce, peas and sweet peas.  I also watered everything in the allotment greenhouse.  Things in there are beginning to get quite big.  They really need to be planted out.  But not in this cold wind.

I have finally run out of comfrey liquid unless there is any left in the other butt.  I decided to cut all of the comfrey on the new allotment and put it in the butt with the tap.  I will put some more water in the butt and this will help with the rotting down.   I need to water the sweet peas with it and put it in the planting holes of the seedlings I want to plant at the weekend.  It will not have done anything by then but the water will  dissolve out the old comfrey sludge.  The comfrey leaves are fairly small but that is probably good because they rot down the quickest.  Ken Thompson in his book:”An Ear to the Ground” says that you should only use Russian comfrey Symphytum x uplandicum because it is remarkably rich in the three main plant nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.  However, it is not unique in this and nettle, chickweed, sweet cicerly, fat hen, goose grass and hedge garlic are just as good.  I am trying some nettles this year but I did not cut any today because I had filled the butt.  Also they are not very big yet. 

My comfrey is not Russian but the wild one.  It does seed if I allow it to but usually I have cut it before it flowers.  I find that it is just as good. 

These are some of the winter cauliflowers that I took off at the weekend.  One or two have gone over but they are still good for a stew.  

Well, I went up to the allotment after work and it was the best thing I could have done today.  The tap between Eric and my allotment is broken so I told several committee members that I had turned off the water.  I hope that no one decides to turn it on again or we will have a permanent fountain and stream between the allotments. 

As I got to the allotment I saw a myriad of people and wondered why there were so many there.  Then I realised that a load of horse muck had been delivered.  I decided to get some and put it under the bean canes as a mulch to keep the weeds off. 

There was a shed for sale on the allotment and I should have gone for it but it was £100 and that is a bit steep for something that is going to be vandalised as soon as I put it up.  I am hoping that Phil will bring an old one down that no one will bother with.  The trouble is that now that there are a lot of people who are working allotments, there is more demand for cheap tools.  There is a danger of loosing the lot from the shed.  An old and dilapidated shed will not stick out and attract nutters to break in.  Hopefully… 

Temperature was 18^oC at 4’oclock today and that was pleasantly warm.  I felt like planting some seed but food beckoned me home.    

Tagetes got knocked hard back by those cold north easterly winds.

Lettuce, peas and rocket doing well on the old allotment. Bean and sweet pea canes on the new allotment.  You can see the amount of stone on the comfrey bed.  This used to be the carpark.