Weeding

 26 - 28 October 2020

Weeding, weeding and more weeding.  We are staunch adherents of No Dig gardening, but it just isn't practical when there is couch grass sending runners into your tasty rich soil.  We live in hope that the grass will eventually become discouraged, and go elsewhere.

A 'lost' crop of beetroot rediscovered.

The lower long bed finished - that one was a marathon, very overgrown

The lower citrus bed - must remember citrus don't like manure and just put woodchip around it.

Clear around the Robinia - which I read recently tend to repel grass.  There was definitely less grass encroachment around this area, so there may be something in it.

Double digging!  

The pathways need clearing too.  We put cardboard down and covered it in woodchip, so the couch grass runners are nearer the surface.  The cardboard has deteriorated, and after the runners are removed, the rotted woodchip can be raked onto the beds.  We'll use new woodchip on new cardboard on the paths and do the same thing next year.

Lovely clear ground - waiting for manure, mulch and green manures.

One of the courses we are doing at the moment is with a local man who has been a farmer all his life but has discovered permaculture and is a fount of knowledge about local methods of natural veg growing.  He recommends planting broad beans at this time of year, not so much for the crop as to feed the soil when cut down in spring.

Aris' herb talk recommended getting in the hawthorne berry harvest to make tincture for the vitamins and health benefits they bring.  This is our harvest from our two little trees - which we found struggling at the foot of a couple of old olives, so we nurtured them (the hawthornes) and they seem to be doing well.

Two other beds completed, and woodchip raked over.

Mycellium found in the woodchip and unavoidably disturbed in the weed removal - relocated to the tree trunk where it can do most good.

Annual veg beds looking good, ready for some autumn planting.