It was snowing today so, apart from picking some brussel sprouts and leeks, I did not do anything on the allotment.

I’ve seen on a website that a so called expert said that adding animal manures to the soil was dangerous because  bacteria like E. coli could infect the soil.  Splashes of soil onto plants would then infect the plants causing illness when they are eaten.  Well, I should have died years ago then.  I have been eating vegetables from soil fertilised by animal manure since I was weaned.  I am sure that there are a lot of perfectly healthy people  that have lived in the eons before me that have eaten vegetables grown in this way too.

The problem is that people used to the sterilised, vacuum packed, plastic coated vegetables from  supermarkets are not used to washing their food thoroughly -or cooking it properly.  One of the best ways of adding organic matter, that is in a form readily available to be mineralised (changed into nutrients), is in the form of cow, horse, pig, goat and sheep manure.  While I am a vegetarian, I am not a vegan.  Which is a bit like saying that you support the liberal democrat party -sitting on the fence between labour and conservative. So I do not object to using animal manures.

I am not sure of why vegans do not like to use animal manure.  The animals were not harmed when they were producing it.

You can see I have put fresh horse manure around the blackcurrent bushes.

The heap of soil indicates  where I am doing the Montezuma digging. There is also annual grazing rye and tares green manure ready to be dug in in the Spring.  This is where I am going to grow the runner beans and the sweet peas.  As you can see the garlic and the winter onions have suffered a little with this hard winter.  Particularly up here on the top of the hill.  The slope is north facing too and I always say anyone who can garden successfully on Wakey Hill is a blooming good gardener.

So the next question is: “Can you put fresh manure on the soil and can you dig fresh manure in?”  Well I have as you can see here.  I have used it around the blackcurrents, like this, for over 15 years now.  So much so that the blackcurrents have roots growing out of their branches and these are exposed when the manure has rotted away.  So frankly, I think that this is another of the great misconceptions about gardening.  I have always dug in fresh manure this time of the year.  Leaving manure in a pile to leach out all the nutrients seems completely ridiculous to me.  However, what works for me will not necessarily work for anyone else.  Therefore, I will be digging in fresh manure for the potatoes and last year when I did this I got a good crop regardless of the aminopyuralid herbicide contamination.

In the above photograph you can see the laylandii that we cut back last year because it was growing throught the fence.   This is the laylandii that I burried in the bottom allotment.

 

It is somewhere underneath the grass green manure on this plot. It grew some really good peas last year.    I am getting a really good crop of tight brussel sprouts off the plants in the background.  The plants are about half the size they  are on the rest of the allotment but why should  I bother.  You might not be able to see that the soil is completely different colour to that of the rest of the allotment.  This was were the council replaced the original soil contaminated with benzo(a)pyrene with soil that seemed to us to be subsoil.  Evidently soil that farmers and council employees think is top soil, allotmenteers would regard as subsoil.  Still I added a lot of organic matter and sieved topsoil and removed about ten barrow loads of big stone and is now amost acceptable.  It is quite a large area to try to improve particularly as it is so infertile.  The brussel sprouts seem to have liked the heaviness of this soil and I hope that the winter cauliflowers do half as well.

The allotment looks very untidy this time of year. Particularly so because of the weather.  It is preventing me from getting on.

I saved that trellising from the bonfire.  I am going to pin it to the shed and grow black berries up it.   That will be the job after I finish off squaring up the top bed.

 

You can just about see the slabs along the path on the left hand side.  This is the task I am on now.  I need to square up this bed.  I will take out all the upright slabs and move them over towards the bay tree.  This will make a 14 ft wide bed.  The corner with the bay tree in is where Bill’s, Beryl’s and my allotments meet.   I grew that bay tree from a cutting!!  I will try an take off the suckers and grow them on to make new plants.  This is the rye grass that I am experimenting with to see if it is an effective green manure.  I put the seed in very late last year so it has not grown very much.  It will be dug in at the end of March probably during the Easter holidays.  I don’t want to dig this plot very much this year because I will be putting the brassicas here.  I will just fork in the green manure.

 

 I have used slabs to retain the soil on the allotment.  I don’t do raised beds - I do raised allotments.  You can see my mixing cone of soil where I am doing the Montezuma digging.  That is finished now and I have levelled it out.  The plot in the foreground will be for potatoes.  I may double dig this plot too.  The pile of soil in the foreground is some turf “top soil” that Phil has left me.  I have put most of this on the bottom plot around the brussel sprouts.  It is all grist to the mill…  The allotment does look untidy but it always does at this time of the year.  What can I say.  It would look a lot better if it would stop snowing so that I could get on and tidy it up a bit more.

The council has now put a stake in the quagmire part of the allotment.  I think it is to indicate that this was one of the allotments that had the soil replaced.  They just need to look at the soil to know that.  It is yellow with large15cm stones in it.  Compared with the soil they removed as polluted, this so called top quality top soil is like my subsoil - but with stones.

I think that the stake signifies that I am about to get a load of muck delivered.  The council has said that they will dig over the allotments and take out all the stone.  I will believe that when I see it.  I hope that they dig in the muck as well.  However, anyone that tries to walk on that part of the allotment is in danger of sinking without trace…

Do I really want the hassle of draining this part of the allotment???  Not really.  On the other hand this is a substantial area of new soil that could possibly have potential if it did not have a flowing stream running over it.

To change the subject, my mate Tony with the horses and trap telephoned me at the weekend saying there was a substantial amount of well rotted horse manure ready for collection.  He also said that I could borrow his trailer to get it up to the allotment.  Therefore, I will be transporting horse manure for the rest of the week.  It is true to say that one man’s rubbish is another’s gold.  You can keep your banks and money and stocks and shares.  I will take a good load of horse muck any time.  You can’t eat money.

I will also have to take the greenhouse glass off the allotment.  Some really pleasant person has carefully smashed it up for me and left the shards all over the allotment.   So kind.  I just hope that I get it all because I really do not want to get cut by glass again.  Last time it was particularly unpleasant.  Really, I should go and get a new tetanus jab just in case.

The trouble is, if you put substantial amounts of muck on the allotment, you increase both the bad and good bacteria.  I define good and bad as those that will and will not give you nasty diseases.  They are not inherently good or bad.  They don’t sit there in the soil plotting to infect you.

But this is by the by, I am starting to clear off the old brassicas.  Believe it or not, because I can’t, after about 15 years of clubroot free growing, the allotment has got clubroot again.  Never mind.  Good hygiene, good rotation and dressings of lime usually gets rid of it.  I did get a 6foot brussel sprout this year - regardless.  However, the cabbage white stripped the leaves and it only produced tiny sprouts.  Fresh sprouts taste the same whether they are large or small so I don’t worry.  Well the old sprout plants went into the green bin to be taken away by the council.  I do not burn diseased material if I can put it into the green bin.

I have taken the hedge clippings down to the allotment.  I have also dug out several of the overgrown shrubs in the garden and taken these down too.  They will be buried at the bottom of the double digging trench.  Now some will say that woody hedge cuttings will rob the soil of nitrogen.  Admittedly the carbon to nitrogen ratio will be quite large but there is little information that I can find that indicates that; this will be substantial; will affect the vegetable plants if it is buried more than 12 inches below the surface; and that the nitrogen will not be returned to the soil once the hedge cuttings rot down.  At the moment, my jury is out but I have to say that putting woody material this far down in the soil does not seem to have affected vegetables in previous years.  You might say that the vegetables would be bigger; nevertheless I don’t really want brussel sprouts bigger than 6 foot.  I wish I had taken a picture of the big brussel now.

I am still getting veg off the allotment.  I haven’t had all the parsnips or carrots yet.  As I take out the brussel sprouts, I am gleaning all the little ones and taking them home to cook.  I am still using up both my red and white onions and the potatoes have not run out yet.  Together with the frozen peas, beans and cauliflower that is quite a substantial array of vegetables for cooking.   The winter cauliflowers look very bedraggled at the moment but I am hoping that they will perk up during the next couple of months.  I will give them all a dose of comfrey liquid during March just to give them a boost.   The garlic has not sent up any leaves yet.  Last year they were showing before Christmas.  The snow and frost has kept them tucked in the soil but the warmer weather we are getting now may make them throw up new shoots.

I need to order some more seeds and I must send off for some Sante potatoes.  I have the Kestral already.  They are beginning to sprout so need to be put out in the greenhouse where they can get lots of light.  I have bought some new raspberry canes again and hopefully this year they will take.  Last years ones were hopeless.  I think one out of ten canes sent up shoots.  Never mind.  I reckon that I had a fairly substantial harvest last year and I looking forward to the new year.

I have not been visiting the allotment except to get vegetables over the past month.  I am still cropping brussel sprouts, broccoli, parsnips, carrots and leeks.  This time of year the only way to keep warm is by digging.  I’ve got a lot of water on the new allotment so I wanted to double dig to improve the drainage.  The council have replaced the soil on the bottom third digging right down into the clay subsoil.  They were very surprised to find that the hole they dug filled with water.  They thought that I had cracked a water pipe in the area.  I have to keep repeating that these are natural springs.  There are no water pipes that I have found on the allotments.  There are no drainage pipes either - except the ones that I have put in.  As they had taken about a third of the allotment soil off, it made an impressive lake.  Now the reason why this area of the allotment was not waterlogged was because Eric and I had raised its level by about 18 inches. 

However, the new soil they replaced it with is level with the path.  Consequently, I am left with a quagmire.  Now one thing I could do is complain to the council and see if they are likely to put more soil on the allotment.  I am not sure that I want any more of their soil.  Compared with the very dark brown to black allotment soil around it, this soil is decidedly a bright yellow.  The council say this is the best of the best soil they could get.  This just means that it is the most expensive they could  get.  Apparently it comes from an organic farm. 

No, I will  not complain.  The soil is there and they have said that they will give me a load of muck as well.  This will raise the soil to some degree.  I will drain it as best I can this year and then continue to raise it using leaves, muck and lawn mowings left by the gate.  I doubt if my fellow allotmenteers will be too pleased because when I am in allotment raising mood I can remove large amounts of material and put it under my allotment. 

And this is infact what I am doing. 

 I am raising the top third of the allotment by burying the grass mowings that nobody seemed to want left by the main gate.  It was a large pile - but not so large now.  Then, yesterday the bloke that owns the shire horses on Penn Common brought down some horse muck.  That brings allotmenteers down like flies.  Needless to say there is none left now and quite a bit of it is under my allotment. 

I tend to dig muck and other organic material into the allotment straight away rather than leaving it in a pile on the allotment to rot down.  There are a few reasons why I do this. 

• this area of the allotment will not be used until May time and that means that the muck has at least 5 months to rot down. 
• althought the carbon:nitrogen ratio is quite large and nitrogen is probably going to be taken out of the soil to maintain microbial growth, it will be returned as the microbes die due to shortage of decomposable organic matter when they have done their job. 
• introducing a good dose of organic matter to the soil helps to drain it.  This happens in several ways.  Firstly you have to dig it in and this helps to break up the soil.  I am double digging so this means that the soil is broken up two spits deep. 
• organic matter like this does not necessarily all break down into plant nutrients.  There are soil processes that allow organic molecules to form complexes with soil particles.  These complexes can exist for a very long time - hundreds of years! They alter the water holding properties of the soil.  They retain water when there is water stress and they allow water to pass through the soil and drain away in wetter periods.
• it gives me a good dose of exercise because I like digging.  Now after a little excess over the Christmas holidays I have put on a little weight and this is a great way of working it off. 

Yesterday I was working in temperatures that did not go above 2 degrees.  When I left the allotment to go home it was -2.  This means that I had to burn off food just to keep myself warm.  I must admit I was not too keen on the temperature when I arrived at the allotment particularly as one of the committee members came over to talk to me about the new allotment soil.  However, after half an hour of double digging, I was really warm.  I still had to wear my gardening gloves because the handles of the wheel barrow are very cold. 

I have just had some thick soup made from leeks, onions, carrots and peas all from the allotment…  Beautiful.�

Now I may be a grumpy old man but I do find the need to light bonfires at the slightest excuse really irritating.  Gardens do not need fires.  They are the  antethesis of gardening.

The whole point of gardening is to get out into the fresh air, give yourself exercise and grow some good wholesome vegetables. Or that is what I thought but what do I know.  Autumn seems to be the season of fire lighting.  A season that culminates on the 5th of November where people vie to get the largest most dangerous pile of flammable material that they can and then proceed to burn it all.

Nobody can be sure but there is a posibility that the benzo(a)pyrene that is contaminating the bottom of my allotment has been caused by bonfires.

Not only that but insult is added to injury by firing off of fireworks.  As if we did not have enough pollution.  Why not add a little more heavy metal contaminated smoke to the atmosphere?

‘Oh’ I hear you say, ‘but arn’t they beautiful?’  No.  Flowers are beautiful.  Gardens are beautiful.  People are beautiful.

And what is this obsession with light bulbs?  Why put them all around your garden?  They don’t look beautiful they look like light bulbs.  I do not stare at the electric light in my room and say isn’t it beautiful.  It’s a light bulb get over it.

There are alternatives to having fires.  You could use your green bin if your local councit provides one, you could take it to the tip or you could bury it on the allotment.  Ah but… I hear you say - regardless of the ‘buts’ there are alternatives.

Garden fires produce carcinogens - cancer producing substances.  You loose the nutrients locked up inside the plants when they burn.  It adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere unnecessarily and it does dump pollution onto the surrounding allotments.  You do not get rid of stuff.  It is still there - just changed- and some of it gets onto other people’s allotments.

I have never met a problem that shredding, burying or composting did not solve.  Burning is not the answer.

Now it might be true what people say that burning is a good way of getting rid of diseased plants but I keep wondering anyway.  Is it?

Are these smoldering, smelly, smoke ridden piles of wet plant material the best way of disease prevention?

Maybe we should hone up on our composting skills.

Maybe?

If you have read any of my other blogs then you will know that part of my new allotment is contaminated with benzo (a) pyrene.  It is a chemical that does not easily enter the food chain and I am being allowed to continue to grow on this area.  Most of this it is given over to sweet peas but I do have runner beans and pumpkins there as well.  It is a carcinogen so  I have been advised to make sure I wash my hands after working in this area. The dosages in the hot spots are worrying enough to cause the authorities to replace the soil to a depth of 60cm on this part of the allotment. 

How this chemical came to be on the allotments is a mystery.  It could have been there for years because it does not dissolve easily and is not washed away.   I am happy with the reassurances I have been given and I am carrying on growing.   It is not the ideal though. 

Now this colours my opinion of the new weed killer aminopyralid.  This weed killer is sprayed onto pasture and while it kills weeds, it does not kill grass.  Cows eat it and what goes in comes out the other end and eventually can land up on someones allotment as manure.  Aminopyralid can stay active for up to two years which means that the manure could affect allotment vegetables.  It seems from the allotment.uk forum that this is what is happening throughout the UK.   Now I thought I was safe because I only use horse manure from horses that live on a pristine field.  I would like to believe that their manure is uncontaminated.  However, chemicals like these have a way of squeezing themselves into the most unlikely of places. 

I am more of a biochemist than a chemist which means that I look at man made chemicals in a slightly different way.  Biochemists like to mash things up because they deal with very small quantities of naturally occurring chemicals.  They also deal in cascades - which means one very small amount of a chemical causes production of another small amount of chemical which then may go on to cause the production of a relatively big amount of a further chemical - or several different chemicals.  So in biology a small amount of a particular chemical can produce quite a big effect.  It only takes one molecule of a chemical or one photon of sunlight to cause cancer.  The only thing that higher concentrations do is make it more likely. 

We have been cheerfully spraying and dousing the environment with man made chemicals for years.  I did it myself.  In the 1960s lots of new pesticides and herbicides came onto the market.  However, it did not take long before a lot of gardeners started to question what effect these chemicals were having on our health.  I remember saying to myself what is happening to the soil animals?  With tiny amounts of chemicals having a relatively large affect on individual animals what effect did it have on the whole ecosystem?  Then came: “The Silent Spring”.     

I stopped using them and since then I have been trying to garden intelligently; using nature rather than fighting it. 

Now aminopyralid seems to be a wonder chemical that has absolutely no effect on the environment at all. Have a look at

 www.epa.gov/opprd001/factsheets/aminopyralid.pdf

Yet it is still effective in allotment manure after passing through a cow.  I would worry about it spreading throughout the environment. 

Are we going to have a “Flowerless Spring”.  It seems that we have not moved on very much from Rachel Carson.