Organic gardening specialists, Garden Organic, have reported that incidents of apparent contamination of manure and compost are being investigated by the Health and Safety Executive.
What is aminopyralid?
Aminopyralid is a weedkiller produced by agricultural chemical manufacturer, Corteva, which is used to kill grasses and weeds on farmland.
Crops sprayed with aminopyralid are not supposed to be fed to cattle and horses because it doesn’t break down in the animal’s digestive system and is still active in the manure that is produced subsequently.
All Newton Hall Allotments Association members are also members of the (National Association of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners) NSALG as part of your annual rent payment.
This year, the NSALG are running National Allotments Week from the 10th to the 16th August, and they invite all members to take part in their National Allotments Week competition to produce videos and storyboards of your allotment story.
In this warmer weather it is natural to want to water your crops in order to keep them hydrated.
However, did you know that the association pay for water on a meter? Every year we spend several hundreds of pounds on water, and with increased water use it could become likely that we would need to increase rents again in the following year.
Here are some ideas you can use to reduce your water consumption:
water with a watering can or small container and not with a hose – making sure you only use the water you need around the plant you are rehydrating means that the weed seeds which are ever present in the soil aren’t triggered into life and it means that only the water you need is used, instead of it being wasted on ground not being used for growing such as paths
Mulch around your plants – putting a layer of compost, grass clippings, bark chippings, shredded newspaper etc around the soil near to your plants helps the soil beneath to remain cooler and means the surface isn’t exposed to the drying effects of the sun and wind, thus holding on to more moisture
Save your own water in a bucket or water butt. If you have a leaky polytunnel it is easy to catch the drips in a bucket. Alternatively, place a water butt or sealed container outside and simply wait for it to rain!
But we’re in the north-east of England! We won’t run out of water!
Some people may also have seen that DEFRA have released a blog post to warn consumers of the chance of possible water shortages with demand outstripping supply by only 2050 – that may seem like a long way away, but the more we can do as individuals and as gardeners now to help slow that down, the better it will be for our next generations, and not only in the north-east, but all around the country.
Additionally; it is much easier to hoe off surface weeds when it is dry; the weeds fall to the surface and don’t have a moist environment in which to re-root.
So by hoeing when it is dry, not only will you stand a better chance of combating surface weeds, you’ll also break up the surface of the soil so that when it does rain, the water will penetrate into the ground more easily rather than running off and not doing much to hydrate your crops.
We are hoping to run a series of informative posts about how to identify different seedlings, to help you avoid growing non-intended crops and weeds in place of your prized veg!
Today it is carrots.
Carrot seed is small (2mm), brown and easily lost in a row.
To grow carrots, I have found it best to use ground that has not recently been cleared, or at the very least to have cleared the ground a few weeks before hand and to have kept on top of hoeing any weed seedlings out as they appear.
Make a drill, which is a shallow scrape in the soil and water this well. This will mean that the seedlings have a damp surface on which to fall, and won’t be washed away by watering afterwards.
Sow your seeds thinly by first putting some in your non-dominant hand and picking up a small pinch of seeds to drop thinly into the freshly watered drill. Cover very lightly with dry soil and mark your row.
When the seedlings emerge they first have two wing-like seed leaves (cotyledons) and look similar to very young grass seedlings. Soon after they develop their first fern like leaf.
So, you’ve sown your carrots; what’s next?
It’s important to keep the carrot bed weeded as they don’t do well with competition, and later in their growth you don’t want to be pulling out large weeds and disrupting their growing, or to attract the Carrot Root Fly. Just picking out seedlings that are not carrots, or thinning out carrots where too many are clustered together is best done very early in their development.
It is also important to get to know what the different seedlings which will invariably be growing alongside are, and making sure you pull out the weeds and leave the carrots, not vice-versa!
Growing tips
Carrots don’t like stony ground. If the root hits a stone it will bend around it and your carrot won’t be straight.
Similarly, if carrots are grown too close together they sometimes entwine each other, again, resulting in bendy carrots.
Cover the seedlings with fleece when first sown to encourage germination but replace this with Enviromesh or another suitable mesh when the seedlings have around 4-5 true leaves (the ferny ones). This allows light and air to get to the bed, but keeps out a good number of the pests that would eat the young carrots.
The number 1 pest of carrots is Carrot Fly. These tiny black flies can smell members of the carrot family for miles (it seems) and will gladly lay their eggs on the surface of the soil, and when the maggot hatches it burrows down into your carrots, leaving them pitted, bitter and inedible. To reduce this, do not handle the foliage of the carrots during the day. Hand weed amongst the carrots in late evening if possible, and it has been said that if you put up a barrier of at least 2 feet around your carrot bed that the flies cannot get in. I haven’t found this to be true, so I prefer to cover mine completely with mesh supported by hoops to keep the mesh off the carrots.
In the early days keep your carrots watered to avoid them drying out, but as the carrot grows this is counter productive as you want them to send their roots down into the soil for water, not finding it at the top of the soil.
Do you have any tips to add to this? Reply in the comments section below!
Saturday 23rd May is the next allowable fire day in the calendar.
Any members wishing to burn on their plots must observe the following guidelines:
Do not make a bonfire pile any more than an hour in advance of burning – hedgehogs are known to use these and are currently nursing young, and could be severely burned or killed
Fires must not be left unattended and must be kept under control at all times
Keep sufficient water nearby to extinguish the fire if asked to do so or if it becomes out of control
Fires are only allowed in containers (no open fires)
Be aware of the weather and the direction of the wind – if it is blowing excessively or blowing towards residential properties you may be asked to extinguish the fire
Be aware of the ferocity of the fire: fires which are burning furiously may send hot embers into the sky which could fall on polytunnels or dry grasses.
Any fire deemed to be out of control will be ordered to be extinguished immediately and may involve the fire brigade being called.
Only dry materials are to be burned: this is because damp or wet material, including green plant waste, produces a lot of smoke and steam in the burning process.
The committee reserves the right to order any fire that is deemed to be dangerous or out of control to be extinguished immediately.
White Tailed Bumblebee on Scrambling Gromwell flowers
Spring has never truly arrived until you catch sight of your first bee, but do you know what species it is?
You might be surprised to learn there are more than 250 species of bee in the UK. Bumblebees, mason bees, mining bees – these are just one small part of a big, beautiful family. Take a look at how to identify some of the most common types of bees in the UK.
Following a technical issue, we have rolled the website back to the last good backup, which has unfortunately meant some content is lost and therefore some links may not work.
If you do notice anything unusual with the site, please report it to web@newtonhallallotments.co.uk
We are hoping that normal service is resolved soon.
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