MY WEEK : 45 ( 20TH NOVEMBER )

Hello all once again, I hope that you are all well and still managing to get on your plots and gardens to do a bit. The weather has remained unsettled and mild for most of the UK which has enabled some work to be done with regards to preparing the ground ready for next years crops, although if you do have heavy soil then this may not have been the case. I have spent my time at the plots this week concentrating on applying well rotted manure and compost to the raised beds which need it, I will leave this until the Spring, hopefully some of it will be taken into the soil by the worms the rest I will dig in to improve the soil structure. Then about a month later I will Lime the ground where it is required after I tested the soil around my plots last week I have been able to recognise where the soil PH needs altering in readiness for the crops that I intend to grow there next year.

I would like to concentrate this week on how to make your own compost as it is an important part of growing your own fruit and vegetables, if you take from the soil and want to continue to in the future then you must give it something good back to maintain a good yield and crop quality. After reading a great deal of material on the subject I myself have gone from only being able to produce a foul smelling slimy material to now producing something similar to what you see the TV gardeners producing.

Making your own compost is good for you, your garden and the environment, and is a very satisfying process as well. By recycling most if not all the organic material from your allotment, garden and household, you can drastically reduce the amount of waste you end up putting out for the dustman and practically eliminate the need to make periodic trips to the local council refuse site to dump more bulky garden waste. Best of all though, is the realisation that you'll have the last laugh on all those pesky weeds as you turn them into something really useful - now that's something to smile about. A successful garden compost should be sweet smelling, easy to use and a delight to handle. Although many gardeners have a go at making their own compost, far too many give up after their first attempt produces a foul-smelling and slimy mix, or the compost heap simply fails to work and soon overflows its allotted space creating an eye-sore. So, what goes wrong? Making compost is really very easy, but for reliable results you need to understand the principles behind the process so that you can manage it effectively. In essence, making compost is like making a cake: you have to have the certain equipment, the right ingredients in particular amounts and then add water and mix thoroughly before cooking. The soil-borne micro-organisms will then do all the hard work for you. For a well done compost, cooking can take anything from a few months to a year, depending on the material you use and the sort of compost you want at the end of the process.

You need a bin, a variety of organic waste materials and a little patience to make good compost it keeps the material neat and tidy, helps retain moisture and heat. Ideally, it should be about 1m? which holds sufficient material to compost efficiently. Smaller bins can work well, but require more careful monitoring to keep the conditions right for decomposition. If your allotment, garden and household doesn't produce sufficient organic waste to fill a bin of this size you could consider getting together with gardening friends and neighbouring plotholders to produce a communal composting bin.

Aim to fill your bin as quickly as possible, because the decomposition process won't start in earnest until the bin is full. In practice, most successful composters will fill their bin in about a month. So, on an allotment or in a large garden you may need two, three or more bins to recycle all your waste.

What can I compost? To get quick decomposition you need to have the right ingredients in the right proportions. A balanced diet of dry fibrous material (such as shredded prunings, newspapers or straw) and wet green material (such as grass clippings, vegetable matter and peelings, any discarded bedding and annual weeds that are not in flower).
All woody material needs to be chopped finely before it is added to the compost bin otherwise it will take longer to decompose than the other ingredients. The easiest way to chop it up is with a garden shredder, but if you have the patience you can get the same results with a pair of secateurs.

What can't I compost? In theory anything that is organic will decompose, but don't add any waste meat, fish or fat otherwise you'll attract rats and for you own sake avoid thorny prunings, sawdust, glossy magazine paper, plastic-coated cardboard, conifer and other evergreen material because they all take too long to rot. Also avoid perennial weed roots, any flowering weeds and any plants struck down with disease because all these can survive the decomposition process returning to haunt you when you spread out the compost on your garden.

How long does it take? In ideal conditions during the summer, the compost bin you filled at the end of May will be ready to use by the end of July. Then the compost bin filled during mid-summer should be ready to use in the autumn, with the final compost bin filled with autumn garden waste ready for use the following spring .

Quick composting requires the right mixture of waste ingredients, plus moisture and oxygen. Use the right stuff Add the dry and wet ingredients either mixed up or in layers of up to 15cm deep if this is more convenient. Don't be tempted to add piles and piles of grass clippings without adding shredded newspaper or other roughage in between otherwise your heap will turn into a slimy failure . Add compost activator High-nitrogen compost activators help kick-start the decomposition process and are especially useful when you are adding a lot of woody waste such as shredded prunings to your heap. Add it to the layers of material as you fill the bin. Keep the compost heap moist The micro-organisms that do all the hard work need moisture to survive and so the compost heap must not be too dry. However, if it gets too wet, less oxygen will be available which also inhibits their activity. If you get the mixture of waste material correct from the start there should be no problem, but if decomposition appears to be slow, check the heap to see if it needs watering.

In Winter, make sure the bin is covered to prevent it becoming over wet. If it does get too wet, the only solution is to empty the bin and mix in more dry material before refilling it.
Turn it inside out The waste material on the inside of a compost heap will decompose faster than that on the outside. So for quickest results and consistent quality compost it is worth turning the material about half way through the composting process (after as little as four weeks in early Summer). Put all the material that was at the outside in the centre of the new heap and vice versa.

Keep it warm in Winter During the winter months, severe cold spells can cool the compost heap and slow down decomposition. You can prevent this from happening by wrapping the heap with bubble wrap or layers of old carpet.

This time of year is an ideal time to lift and transplant vigorous, healthy young sucker shoots from your Raspberry canes, you should try to retain as much fibrous root as possible and plant them about 18" apart where required cutting them back to a good bud about 8" above ground level. You should try to avoid letting these plants bear fruit during their first season to allow them to establish a good strong and healthy root system which will give you a much better yield in future years, to do this you should remove the flowers as they appear during the season.


This is also the ideal time of year to prepare your ground for where you intend to grow your Potatoes abd Beetroot next year. Potatoes will grow in most soils as long as it they have been well dug. The soil should ideally not have any large lumps or stones, add as much compost as is available, or bonemeal or even a Potato fertiliser at the time of digging. It is a good idea to prepare the soil in mid-November or December to allow it to settle before planting and let the compost begin to break down. Although not fussy about the soil type, the potato prefers a slightly acidic soil so do not add lime before, during or after planting.
Potato plants do take up a lot of room and are great at breaking up your soil, the foiliage also helps to smother or reduce any weeds. The ideal position for a potatoes is a warm and sunny site with little or no shade, you should not grow potatoes in the soil for two years in succession, this will increase the risk of disease and for the same reason do not plant Potatoes where Tomatoes were grown the previous year as they are both are from the same family and will readily transmit diseases to each other.

Beetroot prefer medium to light soils, although a heavy but well-dug soil will also be ok. What it definitely does not like is a soil which has recently been manured this will cause the roots to distort, the soil should be neutral or slightly alkaline a ph of 6.5 - 7.5 is ideal although it is tolerant of most normal conditions.
Either use a site which was well prepared for a previous crop (such as peas, beans, onions or celery) or dig the soil well the previous autumn and let the winter frost break it up even more. When digging, remove as many stones as possible the roots like to grow without restriction.
Beetroot should be sown when the danger of hard frost has passed, mid April is about right in most places of the country, in order to avoid a glut plant in small amounts up until mid July. If you want beetroot crops three or four weeks earlier, use a small polytunnel or cloche. Simply place the polytunnel in position two weeks before sowing (to warm up the soil), then sow the seed three or four weeks earlier than normal. Beetroot will definitely appreciate a thorough watering if the conditions become dry this will encourage them to grow quickly and the roots will be more tender and tasty, little weeding should be required because the foliage of beetroot is dense enough to keep most weeds at bay. One tip is to apply a light application of common or rock salt around the plants, try to avoid getting it on the foliage when the seedlings are established, Beetroot does best near the sea and applying salt mimics these conditions.

This weekend is when our allotment association holds it's AGM and as I mentioned last week I have been approached plotholders to stand for Chairman or Secretary as they feel that I have the ideas and drive to take things forward on our site, I have received numerous meassages of support and also advice over the last week which I have found to be very encouraging and I would like to thank all those that have been in touch, I will consider your points whilst trying to decide what to do. Anyway that is it for this week, I hope that once again you find the information that I have discussed useful and informative and that it helps you, regards Steve.