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Sandy soils in the south-east are very hot and dry now with plants potentially under great stress. To avoid this watering is being done on a ten day cycle giving a good drenching to really saturate the top 25cm. Thirsty celery, celeriac and runner beans are done on a five day cycle. There is no need...
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Now that duties at Chelsea are over, the allotment can get some attention. My favourite part of allotment gardening is raising new plants each year. Every sunny place in the back garden near a tap or water butt is covered in young plants and tray by tray these are scooped up and conveyed to the plot...
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Recent dry, sunny weather allowed the slugs and the first wave of weeds to be tackled. Subsequent rain restored soil moisture leading to ideal seed bed conditions. The downside was that weeds germinated in hundreds, but just in time the weather turned dry and vigorous raking again polished then off....
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The first of the 2009 has arrived on the dinner plate – spinach ‘Napoli’ sown in March as a thick row was gathered by cutting off plants at ground level leaving a plant every 20cm to grow larger for the next cutting. My sandy soil can make leaf crops very gritty, so at least 3 washes are needed to get...
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It has been a good week for biodiversity. While cleaning and sorting onions into those for late winter storage, ones to use before December and the rest to use as soon as possible, I saw, through the corner of my eye, a rather dirty onion get up and walk off. On inspection this unusual onion was a toad...
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With record numbers of enquiries to the RHS gardening advisers about weedkiller damage to potatoes that often appear to be linked to manure contaminated with the pasture weedkiller aminopyralid , my heart has been in my mouth that I too might have bought dodgy muck. But so far so good – all looks well...
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Heavy rain has restored the allotment soil to full moisture. Winkling out spent winter crops revealed bone-dry powdery sand beneath, so it is certain that flowering broad beans and peas were suffering and would set fewer pods and potatoes would not initiate their full cropping potential. All that has...
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