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Author Topic: Another first timer!  (Read 5385 times)

Kitchen Cottage

  • Joined Oct 2012
Another first timer!
« on: March 08, 2015, 06:47:48 am »
After 5 years, an allotment reclaimed and that's had piggies on it... a secondhand greenhouse and my lovely friend making me staging from his joinery shop off cuts.... THIS IS THE YEAR OF THE ALLOTMENT!!

I have put lots of things in pots and am now waiting....

A question about carrots and root veg..... I live in Essex Clay (there is a house on top of it but sometimes it seems to get everywhere!) 

I did try the other year to grow carrots and.... well, apart from neglect... they were an embarrassment.... they were about 2 inches long and all more foliage than anything else....

Is it impossible to grow carrots in clay?


Fleecewife

  • Joined May 2010
  • South Lanarkshire
    • ScotHebs
Re: Another first timer!
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2015, 11:55:46 am »
I've never tried this but I've read that one way is to use a pinch bar (crowbar) to make a hole a little deeper than you hope your carrots, parsnips etc will grow, wriggle the bar around until it makes a hole wider at the top than the bottom, then fill with compost or other fine soil.  Sow a few seeds into each one, then thin to one - use the thinnings in the kitchen  :carrot: :carrot: :carrot: :carrot: :carrot:

Another way I have tried is to grow your carrots in a container of good light soil, maybe a 3gal bucket, with holes drilled in the bottom.  You can pack the carrots quite closely; I have had enough for the whole summer from one of the big polyprop square containers you can get from, I think, Marshalls.  Choose a variety which won't grow too long - I chose Nantes types mainly.

In a few years time, when you have been adding loads of manure and compost, sand and grit, your clay may start to improve.  I grew up on Norfolk moraine clay, but my Dad improved the fields with copious amounts of manure, and his veg garden with all sorts.  The soil in there was lovely, and he could grow anything.  As well as cultivating the top, you need to pay attention to drainage as well.
« Last Edit: March 08, 2015, 12:00:33 pm by Fleecewife »
"Let's not talk about what we can do, but do what we can"

There is NO planet B - what are YOU doing to save our home?

Do something today that your future self will thank you for - plant a tree

 Love your soil - it's the lifeblood of your land.

HesterF

  • Joined Jul 2012
  • Kent
  • HesterF
Re: Another first timer!
« Reply #2 on: March 08, 2015, 11:20:32 pm »
I think the key is the digging in of lots of compost/manure or whatever (although carrots don't like the ground to have been freshly manured, I think). Clay is great in that it hangs onto the nutrients so if you can sort the drainage by lightening it a bit, you should be in a good position to grow some amazing veg. I'm in clay/chalk and it is great in summer when it holds the moisture under the surface even if the top looks completely parched.

cloddopper

  • Joined Jun 2013
  • South Wales .Carmarthenshire. SA18
Re: Another first timer!
« Reply #3 on: March 09, 2015, 10:47:31 pm »
It's not difficult to grow decent carrots in clay .
 Tools needed an inch thick steel bar about five feet long with a point at one end and a couple of buckets of sand with a bit of peat & some clean wood ash mixed in well , a cord/line and two pegs  .
 

Set up the guide line with the pegs where you plan the first row , stab the bar into the soil and rive it around  , repeat the bar exercise until you get a cone shaped hole about 15 inches deep 7 five inches across . Fill the hole with the sand and peat mix, gently water each hole with about a quarter of a pint of water.
Once it has drained in & settled , bring the level back up with more sand and peat mix .
 Perhaps make your rows about 5 inches apart ..... no sense in wasting space .

Now and sow two seeds in the middle of the sand ( it's called station sowing ) .  Make the next hole about five inches to the side .  21 to 35 days later the germinating seeds should be showing tiny  green tops in a nice straight line all five inches apart . 

Pull the smallest carrot of the pair when they are about finger thick and sprinkle pure wood ash over the re- covered with sand & peat extraction  hole .
Adding the wood ash on top of the refilled hole helps prevent carrot fly strike which can totally wipe out your crop in a few days .
 
 Doing it this way sees you start to put things into the clay to help break it down  . In dry times gently hand water a 1/4 cup of water direct on each station sown.
Strong belief , triggers the mind to find the way ... Dyslexia just makes it that bit more amusing & interesting

HesterF

  • Joined Jul 2012
  • Kent
  • HesterF
Re: Another first timer!
« Reply #4 on: March 09, 2015, 10:52:46 pm »
Gosh Cloddopper! If you think that's not difficult, I hate to think what you have to do with your challenging veg! Clearly I'm completely lazy because I expect to just seed stuff and then harvest it a few months later. Even seeding in modules and potting on later seems like hard work to me......good job I've got decent soil.

cloddopper

  • Joined Jun 2013
  • South Wales .Carmarthenshire. SA18
Re: Another first timer!
« Reply #5 on: March 09, 2015, 11:04:00 pm »
That's how I had to do it when we first came here to Wales 10 yrs ago .
the garden is made up land  consisting of half a demolished coal mine and loads of thick sticky when wet but rock hard blue sulphurous coalmine clay on top .
 
It has been settling  for nearly 100 years , even the grass pasture sown on top was struggling to grow  according to locals who knew the place 35years ago.
Strong belief , triggers the mind to find the way ... Dyslexia just makes it that bit more amusing & interesting

princesslayer

  • Joined Jan 2013
  • Tadley, Hants
Re: Another first timer!
« Reply #6 on: March 11, 2015, 04:16:58 pm »
I second the container growing option, I used a bath last year filled with well rotted compost and got great results, loads of big straight carrots and no pests, easy to weed. This year I'm doing a second bath load!!
Keeper of Jacob sheep, several hens, Michael the Cockerel and some small children.

Kitchen Cottage

  • Joined Oct 2012
Re: Another first timer!
« Reply #7 on: March 26, 2015, 11:23:05 am »
old tyres done and carrot seeds in :)

Lesley Silvester

  • Joined Sep 2011
  • Telford
Re: Another first timer!
« Reply #8 on: March 26, 2015, 09:52:35 pm »
Let us know how it goes.

Blondie

  • Joined Apr 2014
Re: Another first timer!
« Reply #9 on: March 29, 2015, 11:21:12 am »
I'm very jealous. Me and the OH applied for an allotment ages ago and are still only 5th and 16th on the list. I'll have bought my dream small holding by the time I get to the top!!

Fleecewife

  • Joined May 2010
  • South Lanarkshire
    • ScotHebs
Re: Another first timer!
« Reply #10 on: March 29, 2015, 11:48:32 am »
You never know Blondie.  We got our first allotment about 30 years ago, when the previous occupant was killed - the end wall of his house fell on him.  He had had the allotment for 50 years and the soil was beautiful, although full of mare's tail.  So a horrible story for him, but a lovely allotment for us.  I took on another one a few years later, then moved here to our smallholding 20 years ago.   Allotments weren't in such high demand then, especially as many were very neglected, but there was a waiting list of up to two years.

I hope you get yours soon - they are wonderful places, with a character all of their own.  I miss mine even now   :garden:
"Let's not talk about what we can do, but do what we can"

There is NO planet B - what are YOU doing to save our home?

Do something today that your future self will thank you for - plant a tree

 Love your soil - it's the lifeblood of your land.

bloomer

  • Joined Aug 2010
  • leslie, fife
  • i have chickens, sheep and opinions!!!
Re: Another first timer!
« Reply #11 on: March 29, 2015, 11:50:21 am »
central scotland


first year with a proper veg patch, done pots and stuff before


5m x 5m all dug, soil is lovely and friable but has a lot of stones in it pulled out nearly a ton in that small area... manure added to areas that need it.


half has been fully prepared for planting 3m x2m all ready for legumes and 2m x 2m for early roots


1 row of carrots planted


we have leeks germinated and in a tray in the cold frame, early parsnips are in tubes in the cold frame.


we have 10 x 35 litre pots planted with early salad potatos


the big problem i have is being away from the 8th april till the 25th so as soon as i get back a lot will be planted in a couple of days.


i still have my newly acquired greenhouse to assemble but work comes first :-(


this year i will do ok off the garden next year will be better as will be better prepared and not have a holiday during planting season :-)


we also have room separately for a decent raspberry patch and have plans this autumn for some guerilla gardening on a plot adjoining our garden that is abandoned and apparently completely surrounded by properties so can't be accessed, the plot clearly needs some fruit tree's planting on it :-)


 



doganjo

  • Joined Aug 2012
  • Clackmannanshire
  • Qui? Moi?
    • ABERDON GUNDOGS for work and show
    • Facebook
Re: Another first timer!
« Reply #12 on: March 29, 2015, 12:31:57 pm »
Greenhouse erected - thanks to my ever tolerant son, Donald, and equally tolerant neighbour, Roy
Comments from both - "please can you spend all your money on a holiday and not on things we have to put up for you!"   

(That reminds me Bloomer, two of the big gate hinges have buckled , I did mention it a while ago,  could you get two more and fit them sometime - and collect Beka's red rucksack?  And there's the four double glazing panels for you if you want them)

High winds over the last few days made it VERY challenging, but it stayed up overnight, and Roy bolted it to the slabs so all I need to do is put the rest of the spring clips in to keep the polycarbonate panels in place.  Then the shelving can go in and I can get planting  :excited: :excited:
Always have been, always will be, a WYSIWYG - black is black, white is white - no grey in my life! But I'm mellowing in my old age

Kitchen Cottage

  • Joined Oct 2012
Re: Another first timer!
« Reply #13 on: March 29, 2015, 06:05:55 pm »
Beans and peas now peeking through as well as beetroot.  I bought mini greenhouses from b and q, they are a tenner each at the moment so toms and herbs are coming indoors.  Next weekend should be rotavating and spuds

doganjo

  • Joined Aug 2012
  • Clackmannanshire
  • Qui? Moi?
    • ABERDON GUNDOGS for work and show
    • Facebook
Re: Another first timer!
« Reply #14 on: March 29, 2015, 07:38:46 pm »
I have one of those - been outside all winter and the plastic is rotting.  But certainly useful for a season.
Always have been, always will be, a WYSIWYG - black is black, white is white - no grey in my life! But I'm mellowing in my old age

 

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