Category: permaculture

growing things

Very late potato-planting

Juliet Kemp

Having harvested a handful of new potatoes from the balcony the other week (and then having to deal with the ants’ nest thereby uncovered), I then noticed that I still have a couple of seed potatoes left from earlier in the season, which whilst a little wrinkled look basically still sound. Then, I came across a blog post talking about planting potatoes entirely out of season for a Christmas harvest.

This fits nicely with my beliefs about experimental gardening, so I’m off this afternoon to dump the earth back in the potato-box, and see what happens. I will report back.

In other balcony-gardening news: the red arrow-head lettuce appears to be flowering and setting seed (much to my pleasure), as is the dill (which pretty much just bolted the moment it was a real plant). I shall try planting some more of both.

The cherry tomatoes are doing well (2–4 to harvest daily, which isn’t bad at this time of year), and are still busily setting more of themselves. I am tempted to try planting seeds from the earliest-growing one (a Peace Vine Cherry), to see if I can get a second batch of plants to provide a late harvest. It might, of course, just be a late harvest of green tomatoes; but this would suit me fine, as I very much like green tomato chutney and I’ve just eaten the last of last year’s.

food, growing things

Planting salad leaves in late summer

Juliet Kemp

It may already be the end of July, but it’s not too late to plant a few salad leaves for this season. Unlike a lot of vegetables, which really do need the whole of the summer to produce a reasonable crop, loose salad leaves are sufficiently fast-cropping to be worth planting in July or even August.

Rocket germinates very fast and is worth planting at nearly any time of year. Throw a few rocket seeds into a pot or into the ground, cover lightly with soil and water in well, and you should start to see seedlings within a week or two. Rocket is actually better started either well after midsummer (so, about now) or well before it (early spring), as around June it will bolt (run to seed) much faster.

Leaf lettuces (lettuces that grow lots of single leaves rather than forming a ‘head’) are a better bet than headed lettuces for late planting, as you can start picking leaves as soon as there are a handful of true leaves on the plant. Lollo rosso is one popular option; as is royal oakleaf. Real Seeds sell ‘Bronze Arrowhead’ oakleaf lettuce seeds. I’ve had great success growing these lettuces at all times of year, and they taste great; however, they do take a while to germinate.

Most lettuces, helpfully, are at least a bit frost-hardy, so you can expect them to keep cropping well into the autumn. You can extend this further by building a cold frame. Last year I had rocket and bronze arrowhead lettuce growing throughout the winter, even when it snowed. The plants outside the cold frame survived, but didn’t grow any new leaves until the spring.

Finally, if you have any pea seeds left over, or can get hold of some, they’re also worth planting late. Some mange tout may yet produce a proper crop (experiment!), but at the very least, you can harvest and eat the pea tops as salad.

growing things

Dealing with ants

Juliet Kemp

We have ants on the balcony. We also have ants on the allotment (farming the aphids, mostly, which is both impressive and really, really annoying, leading as it does to the death of the broad beans). I have, therefore, been seeking ways to get rid of ants.

The executive summary seems to be: you can’t; learn to live with them. I have been trying this for some time, but the depredations are getting to be just a bit much. (Especially as they seem to have killed off the worms in the wormery as well.) So I’ve tried a few things.

I’m not prepared to do boiling water; plus it would take ages to boil enough with the storm kettle on the allotment, and on the balcony, it would kill whatever plant was in the relevant pot as well.

On the allotment, the best solution without a doubt has been ant nematodes. The compost heap was absolutely swarming with the damn things before I applied these, as was the paving by the pear tree; both are now clear. I also tried it on the balcony, but with less conclusive effect; the satsuma tree (which seemed to be the worst affected pot) looks to be mostly clear now, but they’ve just moved to the potato box.

Flooding out is one option (if they’ve built their nest in a pot where the plant won’t mind that). After emptying most of a watering-can into the potato box, I very soon saw lots of frantic ants carrying away eggs. But where to? I fear I may need to excavate the Area Under The Herb Table. I’ll repeat the treatment on the potatoes again shortly (and the potatoes should do well for it, as well).

Another suggestion I’ve seen a lot is cinnamon. So last night I went out and sprinkled cinnamon in copious quantities all over the balcony. Curiously, I couldn’t actually see as many ants anyway as I had before, so maybe the drenching has sent them off to find a nest somewhere that isn’t my balcony. I’ll report back on the cinnamon in a couple of weeks.

food, growing things

Germination and experimentation

Juliet Kemp

I’ve had better success with carrot germination this year than in previous years, on both allotment and balcony. This might be due to very thick sowing; the rate is still poor, but the actual number is higher. Carrot seed doesn’t last from year to year, so you may as well sow the lot and thin if necessary, especially given the tendency to poor germination. Turnips and parsnips, on the other hand, have been worse than previously. According to the packet, turnips shouldn’t be planted in May (presumably due to pest problems?), but as we’re now into June, I planted another couple of rows this weekend, along with some more carrots and beets.

Another interesting suggestion in the book I mentioned in my last post is to reconsider advised planting times. The author mentions sowing French beans as a late summer catch-crop, sowing brassicas in June or July to avoid pest problems, and sowing carrots in June (advice which I’ve seen before elsewhere). What I’ve mostly taken from this is to experiment. Once the squash have gone out into the space reserved for them, I’m going to start planting other seeds into any spaces I have left, and see how they do. After all, the worst that happens is nothing, right? I should, though, probably keep slightly better records than I have tended to in the past.

Experiments started so far:

  • Late May carrots and beets.
  • Early June turnips, Brussels sprouts, and kale (some under protective hats, some not, mostly because I ran out of protective hats).

Experiments yet to be carried out:

  • June leeks.
  • June mange tout. (I have already planted some on the balcony.)

Last year I conducted some accidental experiments with tomatoes, as my tomato seedlings didn’t get out into their final pots until July. The result: fewer tomatoes, and most of them still green by October when I finally had to take them in. (I did get some very nice green tomato chutney, though). This year, the first seedlings were planted out in early May, and they’re already starting to flower. I’ve also found in the past through experimentation that tomatoes do much better in pots on my south-facing balcony than on the allotment, so the balcony is crammed with them and I’m looking forward to the first eating.

Experimental gardening does invariably involve a few failures, but at the least you wind up better informed about why the usual rules are what they are; and you may get surprisingly positive results. The usual rules are really just guidelines; it’s only practice (and experiment) that gives you information about your space.

growing things

Allotment plans for the next few weeks

Juliet Kemp

I’m feeling a little unfocussed about a lot of things right at the moment.  For the food-growing, at least, one solution to this is to make a list of what I need to do before the end of November.

Allotment

  • Planting:
    • broad beans, meteor pea, early dwarf pea.  Probably one lot of each this week, and another lot in a fortnight.
    • more kale and mustard greens; the germination rate for the last lot was a little low.  In fact I may start these off inside, then move to the balcony, then plant out in the cold frame on the allotment. 
  • Harvesting
    • more raspberries!
    • dig up the rest of the damn potatoes.
    • sweetcorn and squashes.
  • Tidying up:
    • finish cutting back the blackberry.
    • cut back the autumn rasps, once they’re actually finished (still going at the moment!).
    • check for any seed that can be saved.
  • Infrastructure: 
    • build the cold frame for the mustard greens and kale.  I want to at least start this this weekend.
    • get more planks down for the raised beds.
    • finish deconstructing the pallets so they’re out of the way.
    • dig over the compost heap, incorporating some of the blackberry cuttings.
    • amalgamate the extra compost heap (mostly consisting of blackberry cuttings…) into one location.
    • go out to collect leaves from the park for mulching down (needs to happen soon; easiest way to do this would be to use one of my old compost bags & take it round the park when I go round with the dog!).
  • Planning:
    • keep reading the Permaculture Book and actually take some notes.

Balcony

  • Planting:
    • ? another batch of salad veg?  Don’t have any more room in the cold frame though!
    • maybe some meteor peas.
  • Harvesting:
    • keep eating the salad leaves.
    • dig up the potatoes.
  • Tidying up:
    • sort out all the old pots and work out where they should go.
    • work out where to put the salad veg cold frame that isn’t “on top of the wormery”.
    • bring the basil inside.
    • take up the dead peas.
  • Planning:
    • the best thing I could do this month, I think, is establish a routine of checking up on the balcony daily.
    • decide what to do about the wormery – the answer probably is “dig some worms out of the allotment compost heap and relocate them”.

Ha, turns out that that’s quite a lot of things to be going on with.

growing things

Greenery for the winter: cold frame from scrap (pt1)

Juliet Kemp

In my ongoing quest to reduce food miles by growing more greenery I have spent an hour or so building a small cold frame for the balcony.  It’s not quite finished yet (I have a huge piece of clear polycarbonate that I need to saw into pieces so I can use part of it for the cold frame top), but the frame itself now exists.

The best bit is that it’s made from 100% reclaimed bits.  The base is a wine box that I got from my parents (sadly by the time it reached me it was empty of wine).

The part of the top that gives it a slope (so it’ll catch the sun better) is made from planks reclaimed from a pallet. The pallet was part of a very small pile of wood left after Climate Camp, part of which I took home*.  I saved the nails as I took them out when dismantling the pallet, and enough of them were straightish that I could use them for this project. The measuring, sawing to size (including sawing the diagonals), and nailing together took under an hour: much quicker than I’d expected.

I was going to use a couple of pieces of dowel to hold the two sections together, but it seems pretty stable without. An old compost bag is providing a lining. 

The picture shows it on the balcony in its temporary “on top of the wormery” location.  (I need to rearrange the balcony space a bit.) The pots have rocket and bronze arrowhead lettuce seeds in: the hope is that the cold frame will keep the plants going over the winter & I’ll be able to keep having salads.  We shall see!

Part 2: cutting the top and finishing the cold frame.

* Technically doop took them home, as he was the one towing the bike trailer all the way down Blackheath Hill with 30kg or so of wood on it.

activism, permaculture

An introduction

Juliet Kemp

Of late, I have found myself wanting to write about a certain class of thing.  About the ways in which the world isn’t the place I want it to be; about the ways in which individuals can act to change that.  Right now I’m spending a lot of time thinking about environmental issues and climate change, but that broadens out very quickly, into considering the structural problems which have led us to the difficult and dangerous situation we are in today, and where we might want to be instead.

This blog is a space for practical tips: on cycling, and gardening, and reducing your own impact on the planet.  It’s a space for thinking about the issues: what is the deal with carbon trading?  It’s a space for thinking and talking about structural alternatives: how do we as a society make decisions, act collectively, talk to one another, and how else (how better) might these things be done?  It’s time to empower ourselves, through knowledge and skills, to create the changes we want to see in the world.