One for All

I have been writing three different blogs, and today I finally realised that I only need one.
So there will be no more here :( Instead, all new posts will be at awalkonthemildside.co.uk please come take a look

Clay Soil to Good Growing - The Final Chapter

All the hard work has now been done, so I can get on with the good stuff, Planting.
You can tell that this is the best job, because I get a helper for this bit. Here is Marthanna planting the Charlotte Potatoes, that we hope to have for Christmas dinner

The Potatoes are a bit on the past it side, but they were cheap from the local Garden Centre. I hope the roots will further break up the soil (I can call it soil now). The trenches were topped up with some of the other compost we ordered, this one is Bracken and Sheeps wool, and is lovely and moist.

I hope we get some nice new potatoes after all Marthanna's hard work

View the Steps from the Beginning Here

Clay Soil to Good Growing - Stage 3 "Humous is not funny"

My hopes of a dry evening were dashed as the heavens opened. I should have gone home instead of working this bed, but enthusiasm got the better of me.
We had ordered some composted bracken from the lake district. This is really good stuff for addidng humous to the clay, and is a traditional method of breaking it down apparently.

2 bags of "Lakeland Gold"

At £10/bag it seems pricey, but when you open the bags you can see where the money is. I would have liked to use more, but budget constraints kept us to 2 bags. On the plus side, because we ordered some other compost too, our order of 5 bags was postage free, and the delivery was quick!

Spread out the Fibrous Compost

 If you want to know more about "LakelandGold" here is a link http://www.dalefootcomposts.co.uk/

The LG was stirred in with the trusty tiller, and then to give more humous I added some cheap farmyard manure

After This was stirred in the bed was starting to look something like a reasonable state, which is more than could be said for me. I stunk of manure, and my feet were weighed down with sticky clay. Not Funny!
Anyway, the bed is getting close to what I wanted, time to bring in the secret army!
There is a pile of Dung on the allotment site, it stinks, but look what I found in it!

 Thousands of worms! Just what I need, they can do some of the work for me. I spread a few buckets of this poo on the bed.

That will do for now. Next Step, Planting
Link to Final Stage 
View the Steps from the Beginning Here 

Clay Soil to Good Growing Step 2 - adding Sand

This is an update post on my Clay Soil
This is Step 2

I chopped the clay down to smaller bits in the last step, now I need to start to get the clumps smaller still. My theory is to stir in some Sharp Sand.
You can use special horticultural sand, but its expensive. I wanted to make sure that the sharp sand I got was from a river, not a beech. The easy way to check was to wet my finger and stick it in the sand, then taste it. No salt taste - river sand  - good.
Grit between teeth - not so good
3 bags (apx 75kg)

The Bed before I start Stage 2

3 Bags of Sand

Emptied

Roughly Spread

The sand was then Stirred in, and the clay chopped a bit finer.
The bed started to overflow at the edge, and I was getting fed up of picking it up.





I had some old planks laying around, so I decided to build up the sides of the bed. Still too clumpy on the clay, so another 3 bags of sand.

It is starting to look better. I have spent under a tenner so far, the sand was bought from B&Q at £1.40/bag (its nearly £2 a bag if you don't have a trade card)

This is how it looks at the end of stage 2

Still a bit clumpy, but a little rain and some fibre in the form of compost and manure will help. I will do that in stage 3
Link to Next Step
View the Steps from the Beginning Here

Clay Soil to Good Growing Step 1 - Chopping the clods

This is an update to my Clay Soil Post
Here it is at the start

Step 1
On Tuesday evening I finished off the Double Digging, then made a start on breaking up the clay.
I have a plan to try and get the fine particles of clay to stick to larger particles, such as the topsoil, and then add some sand to break it down further.
To accomplish this I first needed to break down the big lumps of clay, and get the smaller clumps bonding to the black top soil. I don't know what the right tool to use is, but I have got a small Honda FG110 Tiller. I am sure that this is way under powered for the task, but I had a go anyway

The job took a good couple of hours, and the tiller kept getting gummed up with the clay. Please remember to switch the engine off before clearing a blockage.

 Stay Safe

Eventually though this step was done, and it is starting to look better

My Honda Tiller is worked hard on the plot, and has never let me down, apart from on one occasion when I lent it to a friend who decided to use 2-stroke oil in it!
The Honda is a 4-stroke engine, its easy to start, and even though its only 25cc, it gives plenty of power. Expect to pay around £470 for one, or look to hire one from a local hire shop for around £20 for the weekend.
Link to Next Step 
View the Steps from the Beginning Here 

Clay Soil to Good Growing - Shall I grow Veg, or make Bricks?

I submitted a post recently where I used the Hand Shears to trim the grass off an overgrown bed.
This is what it looked like

We tried to grow Strawberries on this bed once, with no success. The reason? I believe it is down to the shallow top soil layer that it has. At one time the whole allotment plot was similar to this bed, although this area is the worst.
To try and get this bed going I am "double digging"
If you think you have a clay soil, take a look at this:

I am going to update this post as I work through turning this clay into a bed for good vegetable growing, or I am going to open cast mine the plot, and become a brick manufacturer.
I'm not sure which will be the least amount of work.

Decision made! I'm going to give myself a hernia and convert the brick factory into a good veg bed!

Read The steps I take with these links

• Step 1
• Step 2
• Step 3  
• Final Stage

Double Digging

We Won a Prize!

Hot off the press!
We came 2nd Place in the category "Lettuce - Butterhead" (class 44)
Yipee!

We had this story published in the local paper