First thing this morning, I got the wormery tub in and drilled a hole in the side near the bottom.  I thought that the hole could be a little big and it was.  I took the tub to the allotment and took the tap off the comfrey butt.  It fitted into the hole but when I tested it for water tightness it did leak.  I will have to find a rubber washer to go around it to make it water tight.  Never mind.  I did not want to set it up right away in any case.  I will get some worms out of the compost bin I have at home.  The scraps from the kitchen can go into this although I will have to remember to take them to the allotment

I put the comfrey tub up on a plinth so that I could fit a tub underneath it and catch the comfrey liquid.  Now that I have cracked the bottom it will not be water tight any more.  I think that I will have to buy a new one. I cleared the brassicae bed by raking up all the dead leaves and forking over the ground.  I put all the dead stumps into a plastic sac and put them aside for taking home and putting in my green bin.   There was some sign of club root so I hope that that doesn’t get onto the top section.  I will lime where the brassicas are going to go this year.

I fed the winter cauliflowers and leeks with a little blood, fish and bone meal.  Then I used the three pronged cultivator to go down each of the rows and clear weed off them.  I will have to go over the middle part of this area - where the Calabrese were.  It has got a little overgrown with weeds.  No problem at the moment, however they will grow into big plants.

I have put up more supports for the rasp berries and planted a few more canes.  I gave all the raspberries  a dose of blood, fish and bone.   I am hoping that this will lead to more luxurios growth above grond.  I turned over about three spits of ground before I had to leave it and go out with my daughter.  It was a close call but I did get to the photographers on time.  My daughter is getting married and it seems that I will have to say which of the items she has decided on I give my approval to.  I just don’t mind and on some things I have no opinion.  Tomorrow I will go up to the allotment early and tidy that sweet pea area.  Then I will level off the top piece.  I am going to take the path out of this area and use the slabs as soil retainers.

I will have to dig over the potato bed soon, however the seed potatoes have not yet arrived.  All the seed has arrived now and I am sorting it out one or two packets to begin my sowing this year.

Thats about all I did all last night and in the morning.

I actually bought some charcoal today.  I went to the garden centre in Albrighton and was going to go on to David Austin Roses but I never got there because of time.  I also bought a big tub of chicken manure and another of blood, fish and bone.

I took them up to the allotment and put some of the blood fish and bone into a tub.  I filled up about half the tub with neat comfrey liquid and then added the charcoal almost to the rim of the tub.  I didn’t bother to grind up the charcoal - it was barbeque lump charcoal.     Now the theory is that the charcoal will soak up the nutrients and hold it within the pores and on the surfaces within its structure.  This will enable the nutrients to be released slowly over many years without it being leached out of the soil.  I doubt that there will be any spectacular increase in the yeald or the size of the vegetables.  This is something that has to build up over many years.

I will continue to do this for as long as I have the allotment now.  I would be particularly interested on its effect on the new soil at the bottom of the allotment.  The soil is particularly infertile and needs a lot of added organic matter.  I have been adding quite a bit but when the brassicas eventually come out I will add a lot more.   The peas will be going into this soil, so I think that charcoal and nutrient mix will be spread along the rows.  I will take out a spade width of soil about 2cm deep when planting the peas.  The mix can then go at the bottom of this mini trench.   I will sieve the soil back on top and this will remove quite a lot of stone which is still in this soil.

I will also use the charcoal mix in the dibbing holes for the brassicas.  I usually water them in with a mixture of seaweed extract and comfrey so it will not really be any different.  I am going to avoid putting any fertiliser on the brussel sprout area.  They seem to like a poorer soil and it keeps the brussel sprouts very tight buttons.

I put some shredded paper onto the third compost heap.  I made these compost heaps with old pallets and wired them together.  Not a nail to be seen in any of them.  I will put anything onto the compost heap that has once been alive.  They are all grist to the mill.  It is a bit like the leaves I am burying under the ground where the old greenhouse used to be.  They are very dirty and full of plastic litter.  It does not take very long to get rid of the litter so that the leaves can be put into the trench.  I would like to put in good clean leaves that have been composted for a few years, however I do not have the time for this so they go in willy nilly.

I have been given a wormery.  I just said that they were a bit of a time waster, however if you are given one then that is a different matter.  I will have to put a tap on this one and I will use the tap from the big comfrey bin.  The big comfrey bin has now got a big split in the bottom so I cannot store comfrey liquid in it anymore, however it can still be a digester with a bucket or tub underneath it to collect the liquid.  I will use the this tap on the new bin.   Now, I thought that maybe the comfrey could be recycled even quicker by putting it into the wormery rather than the digester.  I suspect that this year I will have to use both.

The sweet peas have been devastated by the cold weather.  I have lost over 50% of them.  Rather than potting them up I will plant the straight into the allotment.  This means that I will have to put the canes up fairly soon, which also means that I will have to finish the digging as soon as possible too.

For a few years now I have not been seriously digging.  When I took over the bottom half there was a lot of water running on it from the springs so I had to do some serious drainage.  The best way I have found of draining the allotment is to dig down about three spits and then to add lots of brushwood, shreddings and even logs.  This seems to keep the soil open and allow water to pass through the soil without coming to the surface.  It seems to have worked very well because there is no water on the bottom half although there is a stream flowing down the trackway next to the allotment.  Since I did this last year, I found that mixing the soil seems to have increased the yield from this part of the allotment.  I had four rows of Early Onward peas that had a fairly remarkable crop.  We still have margarine tubs full of them now.

I repeated the exercise in November last year burying a rambling rose from one of the houses that back on to my allotment.  It was seriously taking over the trackway.  I cut it back and buried it so I am hoping that this will aid in the drainage too.  I did not dig a small area by the shed because there were still some of the annual flowers flowering.  Now that they have well and truely died, I will dig these in and try to raise the allotment here to the same height as the rest of this area.  I will probably use some of the brushwood and shreddings  to do this but make sure they are buried very deep down.  This is the exact place where the water was running across the allotment all of last winter.  There is absolutely no water at all this year, however I still want to raise the ground about another 30 cm. if I can.  I have to be careful not to bank up the soil onto the shed though.  It will only encourage it to rot.

I have painted the shed with Cuprinol or whatever it is called.  I didn’t buy it.  It was given to me.  Well, I have painted it on the shed about three times and I still have half a can left.  I am blowed if I am going to throw it away.  It is a nasty old chemical and would only pollute the world.  I will continue to paint the shed  until it all goes.  I may well paint the bean sticks and the poles holding up the wires for the raspberries.   I still haven’t moved the raspberries from the top half to the bottom half.  This is starting to irritate me because it is getting a little late to start moving raspberries.  I will have to do it though because I have planned to grow runner beans where the raspberries are now.  I have already moved the large water butt although in the move it developed a big crack in the bottom and is now useless.  I will use it to store things in and get another bigger one.

On the top of the allotment, I usually just hoe the few weeds off and cultivate the top couple of centimeters with a claw cultivator and then plant into that without digging.   This year though I will dig quite a lot of the allotment.  I am going to dig in the green manure and possibly add a lot of leaves or other organic matter depending on what people leave in the bins by the gate.  I hope the bloke with the shire horses brings another big load of horse manure.  No matter what is in it,  it is all grist to the mill; particularly three spits down.

So, do I do a no dig system or do I begin to double and triple dig again?  I might just run out of time and have to revert to no dig.  The brassicas  like to have a firm soil to grow in.  I think that this may help to deter the cabbage root fly ( Delia radicum ).  So I am not too worried if I cannot dig  the brassica area over.  I have not walked on it since I took the beans and the sweetpeas down last year, so the worms would have had time to soften it up a bit.  Going over it with a hoe, claw cultivator and rake will be good enough to prepare it.  I will also be liming this area I think.  It has not had lime on it for about four years now.  A good liming will help  to prevent club root (Plasmodiophora brassicae.)  I keep to a strict rotation and it has been about four years since I grew brassicas  on this part of the allotment.  Now  that I have the bottom half, I will be able to have a six year rotation.  It makes rotation much easier if each of the beds were equal in size.  This is why I am moving the slabs on the top allotment and making it exactly the same size as the other beds.  I will also relay the path to the tap, taking out the topsoil and replacing it with stones to make a soak away under the path.

This should even things up so that I do not have those irritating little areas where it is not worth planting anything.

I will  have to find somewhere good to plant my viburnum because it is just where I will be altering the path.  There are a lot of bulbs there too which will have to be moved.

This reminds me.  I need to take down the large plastic bags to put my old brassicas in to bring home and put into the green bin.  I should not have left the stumps in the ground because it encourages Plasmodiophora brassicae to spread throughout the soil.  I think that spores from this fungi can stay in the soil for a number of years and it is a devil of a job removing it from a planting area.    I have been fairly successful in keeping it off the allotment until this year.  I have found that the new soil that the council bought has club root in it.  I just hope that it does not spread through the rest of the allotment.

I don’t burn the stumps.  I really don’t think that a damp, smoky, foul smelling fire will be good enough to kill off club root spores. So taking them home to put in the green recycling bin is the best option for me.

Mixing the soil through digging seems to be effective in distributing and reestablishing nutrients from lower in the soil towards the top.  No  dig might be alright for a few years but I think that a jolly good digging once in a while would increase yields - especially after twenty eight years of continuous cultivation.

I am still getting really good crops off the allotment though so I can’t  be getting a lot wrong…

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.

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 no clubroot on the allotment now but I continue to make sure by liming the area where the brassicas are going to go and rotating religiously.  I lime the soil primarily in the spring, March or April, before planting the brassicas.  They will not go on that area of the allotment again for at least 6 years.  (I have divided the allotment into 6 roughly equal plots) You have to be careful to rotate other brassicas like radish, rocket, turnip etc because they can be infected with club root as well.  You must not leave infected stumps in the soil overwinter.  This just adds to the problem.  As Percy Thrower used to say : An untidy garden invites pests and diseases.

One of the best things about sharing information on the internet is the speed at which you learn new things.  The advance of more natural ways of doing things is amazing especially for the allotment grower.  Thanks a lot Christine for the comments. 

If we can develop new varieties of vegetables that are resistant to diseases then this will help us to produce good vegetables without having to resort to synthetic chemicals.  I will not recommend anything that I have not tried myself, however there are some club root resistant varieties of brassica.  I am one of these gardeners that usually does things at the last minute.  I’ll nip down to the garden centre and get the same old varieties every time without looking for new things in the catalogues. 

I have grown Kestrel and Sante potatoes this year.   They are nematode worm resistant and have performed very well indeed.  If you need a resistant potato then this might be the way to go.  They are resistant to white cyst eelworm Globodera pallida and the golden cyst eelworm Globodera rostochiensis.  The new Sapo blight resistant potatoes did eventually succumb to  blight but the tubers have stored very well with none rotting.  I cannot say that about the Sante though.    I am replacing my ancient gooseberry bushes, whose variety I have no idea about, for gooseberry American mildew resistant varieties like Invicta. 

Almost 27 years ago someone on the allotment gave me some gooseberries and raspberries.  I have been growing these ever since.  They are only now beginning to crop poorly and making me consider getting new ones. 

I am going to continue buying pest and disease resistant varieties. 

I think that I had better look at the catalogues a little more carefully.�