The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: bucketman on January 02, 2015, 02:38:55 pm
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Right defo going to grow more stuff here. So been looking at the veg we eat to grow that and spuds are top of the list. Google says you can grow them with a method called Lazy Beds has anyone on here tried this way. It does say thats how people round here and Ireland use to do it. So does it work. Will say the land we have is not the best and was thinking that this may be a way to start a veg patch.
Some people have said on the net that its hard work and not as easy as the name suggests.
Got another question but will put that in a different post
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Lazybeds are somewhat ironically named!
They're what crofters use when there was not enough depth of soil available to grow crops. Basically you take a strip of soil up and lay it on top of the strip next to it, to give you a double thickness, and enough for the roots to take hold.
Not very lazy at all, and actually a hell of a way to have to scrape a living from the soil. Other lazier methods are available..... ;D
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Lazybeds are somewhat ironically named!
They're what crofters use when there was not enough depth of soil available to grow crops. Basically you take a strip of soil up and lay it on top of the strip next to it, to give you a double thickness, and enough for the roots to take hold.
Not very lazy at all, and actually a hell of a way to have to scrape a living from the soil. Other lazier methods are available..... ;D
No its not for it to be easy its to try and get some land in use. Dont think any one has ever grew stuff on the land. Its the sort of land you see in the North West Highlands (cofting country). I know how it done seen vids on Youtube was just wondering if any one on here had give it a go and had any pointers
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How about animal manure? Have you got horses, cows, sheep, hens?
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Sadly wondering if some of the growing I do is worth it. 9 x 30kg sacks of spuds last year. I used saved spuds for seed but still 4 hours of rotorvating and fuel, then the planting , earthing up, a couple of sprays wth bordeaux mixture, digging it all up took a few hours then letting them dry, sorting, sacking (depreciation on sacks) and carting to the barn. sorting out those that decay. Currently 25Kg sacks spuds here are £3.95. So I was 'earning' less than £3 an hour and if I'd bought the seed potatoes it'd have been zero to a loss
Someone was selling onions at £3 for 10kg the other day... the time I spent hand weeding (i.e crawling) along my rows.. OK it ended up with 40-50kg at £1 an hour??
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pgkevet - You're not comparing like for like. We have run out of spuds already and have had to buy some in - they're watery and tasteless. Give me home grown, without chemicals, of varieties I've chosen, any day for taste and health.
It's a good idea not to grow too much of any one crop. Work out how much you need and just grow enough, otherwise you're slaving away to produce food which will go to waste.
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Bucketman - I haven't actually used lazy beds, as our soil here is deep and fertile, but I'm very interested in it from an historical perspective.
I think where you have thin, weedy soil and plenty of manure available they will, as you hope, prove to be a way to get a veggie patch going. If your ground is acid, then spread a layer of lime where the beds will go, at least 6 weeks before you make the beds. If the grass has got long before you make the beds, then mow it if possible, and place the mowings on top of the piece you're going to cover. Add anything else you've got spare such as old straw, before putting your thick layer of manure on. Then the spuds, then more old straw if you have it, then the top layer. But you know all that.
A modern addition which I think would help, would be to cover the whole thing with well weighed down black polythene, then when you see the plants begin to push up, cut crosses for them to grow through. The ground should be wet enough without needing to water.
If you keep the beds covered after cropping, right through winter, then you have slightly deeper, soft, friable soil to grow something else in the following year.
Please let us all know if you try this, and if you do, how it works. :garden:
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I'm gradually converting areas of very thin topsoil and weedy growth. I start by covering with thick layers of newspaper or cardboard. I then cover with at lest a foot of material - usually a bit of compost at the bottom then all the hay the goats and sheep waste over winter. I plant my spuds in this. By the end of the season when I harvest the weeds have gone and I have the start of a decent bed. I then just add compost on top and avoid digging as much as possible.
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We are on heavy clay soil here. After number of attempts at various methods we opted for raised beds made from 2x10 inch planks and imported topsoil which I can keep topped up with compost and manure etc. It's permanently covered with Mypex into which we torch holes or strips to plant the veggies through. Can't be doing with weeding. We've given up all hope of planting directly into the soil which is infested with creeping buttercup etc.
We plant potatoes into old feed sacks with holes cut in the bottom and just roll up the tops as we earth up. Once the plants start dying back at the end of the summer we just cut the hallums off and move the sacks to a dark dry place (the composting toilet) and leave them there until we need them. Then it's just a case of upending the sacks into a wheelbarrow and having a bran tub with lots of prizes. It works really well for Charlottes. We had the last of them on Christmas Eve. Maris Pipers and whites we just get from the shops.
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I was going to suggest raised beds. You do have the work of building them but once they're in place, it's no different to using soil. I have very deep beds as I am disabled and can't get down to ground level. They are timber built but I would have gone for bricks if I could have afforded it. Once built they were filled with part rotted goat manure and left for a bit. I then scooped holes and filled them with potting compost before planting in case the manure was still too hot for the roots. Lovely fertile stuff as I proved by my wonderful crop of squashes this year.
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Right the lazy bit the research.
Will give it a go but another quick question or 2 considering we live in far north
1 Is there any variety I should go for or any to avoid for new potatoes and main crop
2 One of the web pages say use Super Nemoms on new ground what do you think
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As for raised beds trying to keep the cost down. Will have to put a fence round them to keep the deer of so the cash will go there
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That's going to cost a bit. Assuming they are red deer, they can jump a fair height.
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Right the lazy bit the research.
Will give it a go but another quick question or 2 considering we live in far north
1 Is there any variety I should go for or any to avoid for new potatoes and main crop
2 One of the web pages say use Super Nemoms on new ground what do you think
See what people grow locally. The varieties that do best in any area and soil can vary across just a few miles. We used to grow amazing Desiree when we lived in Edinburgh, but they were horrible grown out here.
I always grow several varieties, mostly tried and tested ones, but I usually try one new sort.
My current favourite is Setanta, which makes the most amazing roasties, but is pretty horrible as mash - for that I use Cara.
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pgkevet - You're not comparing like for like. We have run out of spuds already and have had to buy some in - they're watery and tasteless. Give me home grown, without chemicals, of varieties I've chosen, any day for taste and health.
It's a good idea not to grow too much of any one crop. Work out how much you need and just grow enough, otherwise you're slaving away to produce food which will go to waste.
How much to grow is a diffiult balance ..varying conditions etc and as you know if I;d grown minimums then the stray sheep that got in would have left me short. This is a weird mild year.. I still have onions laying on barn floors with green tops as well as the ones bagged. As for spuds going mouldy... it's not a high percentage (yet) and I do have three sacks still..
I shall be cutting back..mostly age-related pains..
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Because we have the space, and I love growing veg, I used to grow masses of my favourite types, then just give the excess away, or even dump it on the compost heap. What a waste of produce and energy. Now I don't have any energy and really resent people who accept veg from me when I know they'll just dump them and not use them. So I've cut it back to the bare minimum - which is why we ran out of spuds - I need to reassess how many is enough. I no longer give away or sell my produce. As you say, it's a balance, with diseases, predation, bad weather and so on. Most years I have at least one crop that fails, but that's just gardening :garden:
I would like to try perennial veg varieties, but the couch grass and thistles here overwhelm me every year, so I daren't try even asparagus, as it would be such a disappointment when the bed disappeared under invasive weeds. My strawberry beds are usually infested, although we do get a crop. Raspberries are a jungle, but again we crop plenty. My bramble patch will have to be hacked right back to the ground as it's a huge, impenetrable spikey trap. I've wondered about '9 star perennial kale' - has anyone tried that?
Going back to the lazy beds, what you end up with is a raised bed, which gets higher each year with the addition of manure and compost. It doesn't have to have any kind of edging at all, just mow the paths between.
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Exactly what my asparagus did...vanished in a mix of pheasant nibbles and weeds. The amout of weeding necessary doesn't justify the crop.
Starwberries i do in many tubs to avoid the same issue. Rasberries got so out of hand - well they were out of hand when we moved here - last year i drove the ride-on mower through them to make an access path. Somewere in there are gooseberries and blackcurrants although I have 3yr plantings elsewhere.
But you can bet that next month I'll be going through my seed stocks and topping up everything and going nuts again....
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This i where we pla to put the lazy bed
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Bucketman - that's exactly how I pictured it :) Definitely mow it before you start, to get that tussock grass a bit under control. I'm looking forward to seeing how you get on. :sunshine:
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Bucketman - that's exactly how I pictured it :) Definitely mow it before you start, to get that tussock grass a bit under control. I'm looking forward to seeing how you get on. :sunshine:
took this pic and another will try and post that as well. But any way then had a quick look in the shed only to find I had left fuel in my strimmer tried it now it wont run. So will have to try and clean the carb out. So not the best start.
any way heres the field
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We made a couple of lazy beds when we first took on an overgrown allotment many years ago. It is called lazy because it saves you the back breaking work of digging down into soil that may never have been turned before. However, it still takes quite a bit of effort!
The potatoes grew well in it and I would choose a variety that does well locally. A lazier way would be to put a very thick layer of manure on the piece of ground now. Cover it in black plastic or cardboard and let the worms start to take it into the soil. Come the spring, plant the potatoes through slits in the plastic or cardboard.
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Bucketman - that looks like pretty good ground (relatively speaking) compared with some in the NW.
Lazy beds were used to grow things on land that just didn't have enough soil otherwise. I am sure that i heard that the word Lazy was a misunderstanding from the gaelic and that they are anything but a lazy way of growing.
Normally lots of seaweed would be dragged up from the shore to form the ridges.
You can see the trace remains of lazy beds all over the NW, faint ridges, usually running up and down the slope. They are still visible as, since they were last used, no-one has been daft enough to even attempt to plough the ground as it is so poor.
You will find that in your area the locals (at least the older ones) will favour dry floury tatties. I don't think they grow any better it is just what people prefer. British Queen was probably the most popular variety in the far North.
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Bucketman, you may want to get yourself a copy of "Fruit & Vegetables for Scotland" by Kenneth Cox and Caroline Beaton. Lots of advise on what varieties do well in different parts of Scotland.