Digging

When is the best time to dig the veg. plot. Im half way through digging my plot but its too wet now. If you add manure in the autumn/winter when digging will the nutrients be leeched out, is it better to add manure in the spring just before planting

 

hello KevinO,put manure on now so it can rot down over winter.Dig it over in the spring when the ground softens up.Is the plot from scratch or have you had veg in it before.Have a look at Plottys web,i think its on EG.

 

Oh knickers,just looked at NM,but cant see photos.

 

I thought the idea was to dig it in early winter so the frost will break it down. This is particularly true if there is any clay present. I used to dig my allotment so that it ended up in ridges. One section used to be double dug ie the top spit removed and the bottom forked over and then manure placed on top, followed by the top spit of the next section. The only way you could get it dug in time was by starting in winter.
Spring was just then a matter of raking down.
I think I remember a reason being that you would apply lime in spring and you don't put lime on newly manured land.
Traditionally autumn is the start of the season. I used to start by opening up a two spit deep trench for the beans. Into this went all the spent haulms etc and it stayed open all winter. Then the rest of the pea, bean and onion section was double dug as described.

 

Autumn is the time to dig if you are into digging. The idea is that exposing the lumpy clay to the frost helps break it down, That's fine as far as it goes and is pretty essential for any new plot. But we don't get many frosts now so that means only wind and rain wil erode those lumps.

For established plots, most organic gardens don't dig. The theory is that all digging damages soil stucture. Instead, some grow on raised beds or do as I do - apply a thick organic mulch (I use garden compost and stable manure)for the worms to drag under. That way you get manure taken down to improve fertiltiy, the worms are encouraged and aerate the soil improving structure and drainage. The bonuses are that the mulch is a weed suppresent/deterent and your back appreciates a "no digging" regime.

 

I also try to be as organic as possible. I have put in raised beds so I don't stand on the growing stuff. I have lots of manure in the beds which will be forked in spring. I have covered my beds after adding manure, to prevent weed growth over winter as mentioned previously - our winters are quite mild.. However we had a good frost last night.
I don't put any manure on the beds that I am growing roots in (in spring) as they don't like it - crop rotation.

I have to dig over my larger beds where I put potatoes and sweetcorn and some other stuff, I add the manure whilst digging and then just a quick fork over in spring before 'raking to a fine tilth' for the seeds.

The stuff seems to grow, so I must be doing something right!

 

Seems to me that you are doing everything right, Badsal! Great

Yes - you do get some weird forked carrots if you grow them in freshly manured beds :D

 

On the roots section i never put any manure in because of the above reasons buit potatoes really could do with it. What I used to do is dig the trenches slightly deeper than normal and then put a layer of well rotted on the bottom. The potatoes were laid on the manure before back filling. I had read that it helped prevent scab and certainly I had very little scab with that technique.

 

My plot has quite a variation of soils one half is clay, heavy which is very wet at the moment and the other half is quite light, well- drained soil. I have double dug one bed which is heavy clay but i did not add manure as i hope to add it in the spring. The heavy clay which i have dug seems to have slumped and is still extremely wet but the weather has been very wet. I have been growing veg. in that plot for about three years but have expanded it so some parts have been growing veg. longer than others. Last winter i dug over all the beds and added horse manure(my father keeps horses) and most veg. did very well.

 

Badsal72- what is your crop rotation. I like to start with potatoes then roots, peas& beans and then cabbages. For the potatoes i like to add a lot of manure, then no manure for the roots, then plenty of manure for the peas and then compost for the brassicas.

 

Thats a 4 course rotation. You can manage 3 course if you put the spuds and roots together. I used to put the manure for the potatoes in the trench when planting the spuds but none on the rest. I also put sweet corn and marrows in that section and they were heavily manured, just on that section they were growing in.

 

i LIKE TO KEEP THE SPUDS AND ROOTS SEPARATE AS I GROW A LARGE AMOUNT OF THESE. DO YOU GROW YOUR SWEETCORN ALONG WITH YOUR SPUDS

 

Wow i am not deaf I see you suffer from the same problem as me - big gardener's fingers hitting the Caps Lock key
But seriously yes I grew sweetcorn is same section as spuds. I put them in with other roots cause if I had a 4 course rotation 1/4 of the plot was a bit big for just carrots, parsnips etc. Swedes and turnips have to go in with cabbages cause they are a brassica.
Are you thinking of putting the sweetcorn somewhere else in the rotation to give you more room for spuds? I should imagine they could go in with peans, beans and onions as long as they kept in that rotation.

 

I was going to grow them along with my onions and shallots but i will probably fit them in wherever i can. I'll try to keep them in the sunnier spots. I read somewere that carrots do not like to grow along side parsnips? Is there any truth to that- if so where else could you put them in the rotation

 

im not by any means an expert,this being my first year with veg,butihave found that i did plant carrots beside parsnips and found them to have grown really well,like i said im in my first year