June and July came and went, just like that

June was a bit of a write-off, work-wise. I was doing crazy hours, chucking myself at the task in the hope of making a little bit of a difference and absorbing myself in something constructive to try and keep myself reasonably stable and ok.

I managed to get up to the allotment most days, even if only for a quick watering visit, before carrying on working into the evening. Getting outside, connecting with the earth and the light and the season, watching things grow: these things kept my feet mainly on the ground.

Sunflower Ruby Sunset

Salad from the allotment

Late July harvest

Bunch of flowers in July

Rainbow chard

Cinnabar moth – there are loads of its caterpillars on the ragwort at the edge of the plot

The plot in July

It’s a good year for squashes

Now I’m in my new job. I’ve been massively enjoying immersing myself in the subject and getting to know the team and some of the people and organisations we need to work with. Somehow the first 7 weeks went by in a flash, and now here I am, in August, wondering how so much time could possibly have passed so quickly.

Dirt to Soil

I’ve read some books recently that have opened my eyes to the dreadful decline of wildlife in our countryside and the things we can all do to help, whether that’s on huge farms or small gardens and allotments like mine. I would heartily recommend, in particular:

• Rebirding by Benedict MacDonald
• Rewilding by Isabella Tree
• Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown

One of the things I’ve been learning much more about, and am becoming really fascinated by, is soil ecology. I thought I knew a bit about soil already, having added manure to my allotment steadily over years and dug it to break it up every winter and spring. Turns out I didn’t really have a clue.

Reading Gabe Brown’s book (Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey Into Regenerative Agriculture), I finally understood why no-dig allotmenting is a good idea, that leaving the soil bare is the last thing you should ever do (I’ve done this on most of the plot most winters, hoping the cold would break up the clay) and that green manures are much more useful than I had ever imagined.

Gabe Brown’s 5 principles for regenerative agriculture

Gabe Brown names 5 principles for regenerative agriculture, most of which you can do on an allotment and which I’m going to try doing from now on:

1. Limited Disturbance – digging destroys soil structure, disturbs and harms the micro-organisms that keep the soil healthy and leads to soil erosion – I had half-planned to do this anyway, having finally made my 12 beds, but am now committed to it to see how it affects the soil over the next year or two
2. Armour – keep the soil covered at all times, whether that’s with plants or a mulch – this protects it from erosion and provides habitat and food for essential micro-organisms to keep the soil healthy – I’ve used mulches here and there, but have never had a principle of covering all of the soil, one way or another, all of the time
3. Diversity – use a diverse range of cover crops / green manures, not just one – they each do something different for the soil and growing several at a time helps support a more healthy and resilient soil ecosystem – I had no idea this was a thing, now I’ve understood it it makes perfect sense – next year’s plan will include more diversity in each bed through inter-cropping and cover crops as well as mixing up the crops in each bed a bit
4. Living roots – always have living roots in the soil, to feed and support the micro-organisms in the soil – I didn’t know this was a useful thing to do, and will be doing it as much as possible from now on
5. Integrated animals – animals graze and provide manure, which is essential to soil health – you can’t keep grazers on an allotment, obviously, but you can add manure to the plot (I’ve done this in a sporadic way for years, usually to feed a specific ‘hungry’ crop like squashes) and you can go out of your way to support a diverse range of worms, insects and microbiology that support a healthy soil – not something I’ve consciously done before

The book tells the fascinating story of how Gabe Brown learned and applied these principles on his farm in North Dakota. It’s very compelling, and led me to want to learn more so I ordered a copy of Mycorrhizal Planet by Michael Phillips. This one is frankly a bit heavy for my taste in its description of the science of soil ecology, but there are some really useful explanations of how soil ecology works and how you can support it instead of damaging it.

Green manures

The biggest revelation for me in all of this is the value of green manures. I previously thought the main value was in the green growth you could cut down and either dig in or add to the compost heap. On that basis, I’ve only ever used them once or twice and regarded them as a bit of a pain, more hassle than they were worth. Turns out the green growth is actually the least of it – there is also huge value in covering the soil, and in the roots which can help break up the soil, increase water storage capacity in the soil, provide organic matter (2/3 of the organic matter from cover crops comes from the roots, according to Gabe Brown) and support healthy soil microbiology.

So, today I started sowing green manures in earnest in the gaps on my plot (there aren’t many at this time of year, but there is a bit of space for inter-planting, and there’s some vacant space where I’ve been digging up my early potatoes, so I’ve started there).

I ordered a small packet of each kind of green manure sold by sowseeds.co.uk (the info is from their website, supplemented by a couple of the books mentioned above):

• Alfafa – deep roots, can overwinter, good for drought-prone soils – sow April, May, June and July
• Buckwheat – good for smothering weeds, scavenges for phosphate to make it available, provides nectar for pollenators – sow May, June, July, August
• Caliente mustard – releases biofumigant gases that inhibit soil pests (needs to be chopped up and dug in within 20 mins for this to work) – sow March – October
• Crimson clover – fixes nitrogen, smothers weeds, has deep roots that break up the soil, improves soil structure, good for bees; not always winter hardy, but you can leave the frosted foilage on the soil as a mulch; if you sow it with rye grass, the nitrogen will be released more slowly, otherwise it’s released quite quickly – sow April to September
• Fenugreek – a quick-growing annual, improves soil structure
• Field beans – winter hardy beans, good on heavy soils, deep roots and fixes nitrogen –  sow May to August
• Fodder radish – very quick growing, draws up nutrients from the sub soil and breaks up compacted soils, suppresses weeds – sow May to August
• Forage pea – fixes nitrogen, has deep roots that can break up the soil, good for overwintering – sow from September to November
• Forage Rye (Hungarian Rye Grass) – good for overwintering, significantly reduces leaching, lifts nitrogen, copes well with heavy soils, builds a big root mass to add organic matter to the soil- sow August to October
• Italian Ryegrass – winter hardy annual / biennial, good at suppressing weeds, lifts nitrates and releases them slowly to the following crop, mixes well with other green manures, builds a big root mass to add organic matter to the soil – sow March to October
• Lupins – I didn’t get these because the like a sandy soil whereas mine is heavy London clay
• Mustard – fast-growing (can be ‘harvested’ after 4-8 weeks), really good for adding organic matter, lifts nitrogen from the soil and once dug in releases it for the next crop, might help deter wireworms so good to use this before planting potatoes, is a brassica so rotate with brassicas to avoid disease build-up – sow March to September
• Phacelia – hardy annual, fast-growing, germinates at low temperatures and can over-winter, attracts pollinators, has dense roots that improve soil structure and produces lots of foliage – so March to September
• Red clover – fast-growing perennial, fixes nitrogen from the air, suppresses weeds, has deep / large roots that break up soil, add organic matter and improve its structure, can overwinter – sow April to September
• Sweet clover – rapidly growing biennial with very strong roots – good for breaking up heavy or compacted soil and drawing up minerals, can be over-wintered, attracts pollinators, treat as a legume – sow March to September (except June and July)
• White clover – frost tolerant and can last 2-5 years, fixes nitrogen, suppresses weeds, ‘top’ to encourage strong roots to develop, treat as a legume – sow March to August
• Winter tares (aka vetch) – hardy annual, fixes nitrogen and suppresses weeds, avoid acid or dry soils – sow March- May or July – September
• Yellow trefoil – suppresses weeds, fixes nitrogen, attracts pollinators, low-growing and good for inter-planting taller crops with open canopies like tomatoes or brassicas, not frost-hardy (but frost will knock it back and leave it as a mulch on the surface) – sow March to August

Here’s a really useful guide I found that includes some help in choosing the right green manure for your site and purpose: https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/sites/www.gardenorganic.org.uk/files/Sort-Out-Your-Soil-Final.pdf.

You can order ready-prepared mixes, but I fancy making my own mixes and seeing what happens, so today I sowed an ‘August mix’ of things that can be sown in August, into the beds where the garlic and potatoes had been. The pea bed will be potatoes next year, and the potato bed will be for brassicas. I included:

• Yellow trefoil to fix nitrogen from the air
• Red clover to add organic matter through its roots and break up the clay soil, to overwinter and provide nectar in the spring
• Buckwheat to smother weeds and make more phosphate available
• Crimson clover to fix nitrogen from the air and improve soil structure
• Italian Ryegrass to overwinter, lift nitrogen to release it slowly next year for brassicas, and to add organic matter through its roots and break up the clay soil
• Winter tares to fix nitrogen, overwinter and suppress weeds

As a rule, you want at least 6 things per mix. These were all the ones I had to hand that you can sow in August- there are more coming that I’ll add into the mix next time. I guess it’s all about experimenting to see what works in my soil and location, but I reckon mixing several together is generally going to be better than sowing one or 2 unless there’s a very specific reason to do that. I’ve not decided yet whether I’ll let these overwinter, or cut them down in September and sow an over-wintering mix in October. Would two cycles be better than one? I have no idea.  Maybe I’ll leave the ones next to the peas, as they’ve got the wildflower mix in there which won’t flower until spring, but cut down the ones in this year’s potato bed and sow an overwintering mix there in October….

I also added a bit of bees and butterflies (also from sowseeds.co.uk) wildflower mix to the area next to the peas (also sown today to replace the spring / summer crop which was a bit of a wash-out to be honest), in the hope some of them might flower a bit and supply some early nectar for insects before it’s time to cut back the green manures and plant the spring crop there.

I’m not planning to dig in the manures, because I want to try out no-dig for a while to see how that works on my soil. You can take the chopped-down growth off and put it on the compost heap, but I don’t want to do that with nitrogen lifters that will have taken nitrogen out of the soil. So I’ll plan to chop the green manures up and leave them on the surface as a mulch. Some of them inhibit seed germination, so I’ll need to do this 4 weeks ahead of sowing any seeds – the idea is that this will also give them time to start being incorporated into the soil, too.

I can’t wait to see how it all pans out. I’m feeling newly enthused by the idea of building up the health and structure of the soil on the allotment, trying different things to see what impact they have and hopefully making the whole plot better as a result.