Moulsecoomb Allotments & Horticultural Society MAHS News Summer 2017

Tara’s No-Dig Experiment on plot 153 You may remember Tara North’s piece in the spring newsletter about her experiment with a ‘no-dig’ method for growing her organic vegetables. If you'd like to read it again, Tara’s article is on the Allotment Growing page of our website here Three months later, she has sent us some photos at various stages of her plot’s development, from an overgrown mass of weeds to crops growing in neat beds. The first two photos show how she started and how it looks now.

Tara writes : “This is 100% no dig. Has kept away most weeds, but actually needs more water to completely decompose. Now 6 months old. Now using little less cardboard as the weeds are more under control, and crops growing. Also used my first homemade compost on my ex-onion plot for more beetroot and carrots. Really chuffed with that!”

Tara again : “Also no dig, except for large weeds pulled out previous to mulching and mature compost laid on the bed before black cover. Butternut squash sprouts here.”

Organic gardening Some of you have asked where to get help and advice on growing your fruit and veg organically. And you want more than a list of books and websites. Well, the answer could be Brighton and Hove Organic Gardening Group (BHOGG).

BHOGG is a membership group who want “to help people realise that gardening organically is easy, fun and rewarding”. They have a newsletter, a community allotment and a calendar of events. If you want to find out more, they have a website here

Sunday evening social by Sally McGregor and Judy Goss

Join Sally and Judy for a chat and get to know the gardeners around you. Share tips, or even bring seeds or spare plants/produce to share or swap if you like. Just bring along a chair and food & drink to share. All plot-holders and co-workers are welcome.

Sunday 13th August 2017. Meet at 4pm at the grassy area at bottom of the hill directly down the road from the shop.

Earthworms - ‘Nature’s Ploughs’ By Dave Witts If we’re asked what our plots need to produce good veg and fruit, we might say manure, compost, or bees and other pollinators. These are vital of course. But how many of us would immediately think of earthworms? And yet we need worms for healthy soil.

Where earthworms are present there are more bacteria and fungi and these release nutrients to feed our plants. Worms ‘engineer’ the soil and improve its structure. Charles Darwin called them ‘Nature’s Ploughs’

Different types of earthworms make horizontal and vertical burrows, some of which can be very deep in soils. These burrows create pores through which oxygen and water can enter and carbon dioxide can leave the soil. The casts which they excrete contain a mass of nutrients and are also responsible for some of the fine crumb structure of soils. Earthworms break down dead organic matter – dead plants and animals – within and on top of the soil. They eat the organic matter and, as it passes through their bodies, it breaks down into smaller pieces. This allows bacteria and fungi to feed on it and release the nutrients to feed our plants. They are at work in your compost bin too.

Earthworms move large amounts of deep soil to the surface and carry organic matter down into deeper soil layers, as pictured here. They mix the soil layers and incorporate organic matter into the soil.

This mixing improves the fertility of the soil - it disperses the organic matter through the soil, allowing the nutrients held in it to be taken up by bacteria, fungi and plants. Earthworms also help root growth. The channels made by deep-burrowing earthworms are lined with readily available nutrients and make it easier for roots to penetrate deep into the soil. And by fragmenting organic matter, they help to hold water in your soil.

Not only earthworms Earthworms are not the only invertebrates which are important for our soil. Bugs such as bristletails (pictured) and woodlice are often regarded as pests, but they too break down dead and decaying vegetation and enrich the soil.

Even the ‘gardener’s enemies’ – slugs and snails – do the same. Like worms too they all enrich it further with their own bodies when they die. Earthworms and bugs are vulnerable to common pesticides. We should look after them all and grow our food as organically as we can.

So which earthworms do we see? There are 27 species of earthworms in this country and they may be grouped according to their behaviour.

Compost worms - these prefer areas very rich in rotting vegetation, which they very rapidly consume. They tend to be bright red in colour and stripy, and about 7cm long.

Surface dwellers (epigeic worms) - these species tend not to make burrows but live in and feed on leaf litter. They are also often bright red or reddish-brown, but they are not stripy. About 6-7 cm long.

Soil dwellers (endogeic worms) – they make horizontal burrows through the soil to move around and to feed. They are often pale colours, grey, pale pink, green or blue and are about 6 cm long. Some can burrow very deeply in the soil.

Vertical-burrowing worms (anecic worms) - they make permanent vertical burrows in soil. They feed on leaves on the soil surface that they drag into their burrows. They make piles of casts around the entrance to their burrows. They are the largest species of earthworms (about 12cms) in this country and are darkly coloured at the head and have paler tails.

The digestive system of earthworms runs throughout the length of their bodies. They have no lungs but instead absorb oxygen through their skin and their skin needs to be kept moist. Photos and descriptions of earthworms courtesy of The Earthworm Society of Britain. Website here

Nature Site by Liz Yeats: The Site is open to everyone on the allotment site to enjoy or help maintain. The entrance is by the shop, you’ll see a Nature Site notice board. Follow the winding path down the steep northerly side of the allotment site.

There are several benches so you can spend time watching the birds, butterflies and insects visiting the wildflowers. There is a small pond so you may see dragonflies or damselflies. Large Red Damselflies are pictured here mating. A circular path takes you round the site, where we have planted many native tree saplings. There are still large patches of brambles (very good for wildlife), so please do pick the blackberries. If you’d like to help look after the site, Nature Site volunteers meet at pre-arranged times, you are welcome to join us. Posters with time and date are by the main gate, or why not look at the website – full details of sessions, lots of photos of what’s been happening over the year here

A few Allotment tasks for the summer by Liz Yeats Crops are really producing now. You’ll need to visit your plot once a week, preferably twice, just to keep up with courgette production, (a tiny one on Monday is a marrow by the following week). What to do with extra fruit crops: Everyone’s fruit bushes and trees, especially red currants and cherries, on our site are loaded down with berries this year, even the birds can’t manage to eat them all!

Currants, gooseberries, raspberries all freeze really well, just pick them into old margarine or ice cream tubs and freeze- they are easier to wash when frozen just before you use them during the winter. Unfortunately strawberries don’t freeze well, but they are OK for use in milk shakes etc when their mushy texture doesn’t matter. There are quite a few ways of using fruit, you don’t have to make jam; any fruit cooked with a little sugar, then added to custard and chilled, makes a brilliant fruit fool. (you may want to sieve out the pips of some fruit). Then there’s mixed fruit crumbles, cakes and biscuits with fruit added, or on top as a decoration. Raspberries and other brier fruit come out of the freezer as though freshly picked- a luxury in December to be eating a ‘fresh’ bowl of raspberries! Saving Seed: you can leave some of your broad (and other) bean and pea cops on the plant to ripen into seed for next year. Pick the pods when the pods are dry and brittle, and store in paper bags in a cool dry place (not your shed or the mice will eat them!) Sow crops for winter use: lettuce, beetroot, fennel, carrots can all be sown in July or early August, for an autumn or winter crop. Lettuce will need some protection over winter, either in your unheated greenhouse, or under fleece. They may not grow much during the winter months, but you’ll get lettuces ready to eat in March. Some people plant potatoes for new potatoes on Christmas day! Onions family: garlic, shallots and onions will be ready to harvest during the summer. The exact timing will depend on when you planted them. Watch for signs they are dying back, the tops will start to fall over. When you see this, give them a hand in the ‘hardening off’ process by moving soil away, exposing the bulbs to sun and air- and don’t water them of course. The longer they can dry off in the sunshine- becoming golden brown, the better they’ll keep during the winter.

Avoiding ‘bolted onions’: just like the garlic pictured here, onion sets have a nasty tendency to ‘bolt’ – that is, send up a flower stem instead of developing a large onion bulb. They are hopeless for eating when they do this, having a hard thick inedible core down the centre of the bulb. If you see this happening, pull bolting ones up, and eat what you can of each onion.

You can avoid this happening next year by sowing onions from seed. Seed can be sown either in August, covered with a cloche, Perspex mini-tunnel or fleece over the winter months, or by sowing in early Feb on your windowsill, then replanting the seedlings in a covered nursery bed on your plot in March. In both cases, the row of seeds will be close together, then, when the size of a drinking straw mid April, plant them out in their final growing position, 4inch apart. Tomatoes, Peppers, Aubergines, Cucumbers: these all need regular feeding with seaweed (high potash). Put a splosh of concentrate in a watering can once a week and give each plant

a bit on top of their regular watering. It helps plants to flower and produce fruit. Sweetcorn and badgers: Badgers LOVE sweetcorn. They smell where it is and can trample your crop even before the corn is ripe. Erect a very stout barricade if you want some for yourself! Sally Griffin has used another method that also worked; she surrounded her sweetcorn patch with strong smelling things, rosemary twigs, strips of cloth soaked in essential oils etc. It seemed to stop the badgers smelling her sweetcorn.

The beauties of our allotment site Swollen-thighed beetle on a Corncockle flower, Globe Artichoke in flower and Slow Worm

Keeping Paths clear Paths between our plots are used by everyone. They need to be kept clear of obstacles, and the grass cut so others can reach their plots without falling over, or getting wheelbarrows caught in overgrown brambles or shrubs. Why not negotiate with neighbouring plot-holders about who will look after which path, or take it in turns?

Shop News by Wally Now the growing season is well underway, I’d like to remind you we have a good stock of fertilisers, organic and non-organic. There are 3 Maxicrop products now in stock: Maxicrop, Maxicrop Triple and, ever popular, Maxicrop Tomato Feed. We still have plenty of peat-free compost and farmyard manure, the latter goes very quickly so get it as soon as possible. We are now stocking gardening gloves and garden twine in 200m lengths. In stock soon:

Onion sets – Senshyi Yellow and Red Winter Broad beans – Aquadulce Claudia Peas – Douce Provence Garlic – Mershy Wight, Elephant Garlic

Our 2 suppliers – Fargro and King’s Seeds – provide extensive catalogues of gardening equipment so if you need anything we don’t have in stock, have a browse. Support your shop! Keep us informed of what you’d like to see in the shop. Reminder: if you want to use the shop, you need to be a member. £2 subs are due each April. If you haven’t paid for this year, please call in and talk to the shop worker.

National Allotments Week – Site Open Afternoon, Sunday 20th August, 2-5pm National Allotments week is a National Allotment Society initiative. This year the theme is “Growing the Movement” a celebration of all the hard work put in by voluntary association management committees, plot-holder volunteers and councils managing, creating, developing and safeguarding sites. You can read more here Why not join us on Sunday 20th August, 2-5pm to celebrate our own allotment site. Refreshments at the shop, meet fellow gardeners, and visit other plots and the Nature Site.

This newsletter has been compiled by Liz Yeats & Dave Witts 17th July 2017

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