Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023

[p.penn]

I was lucky enough to be built some fab raised beds in my tiny front garden over two years ago, and was very optimistic about all the veg I was going to grow, but it hasn’t worked out so well . They put 10 bags of compost in them, I added another 6, and it’ s mostly vanished! There isn’t much depth either, and with the pulling up antics of very sweet but naughty birds, it’s been a money pit! The only thing that did well last year was one tomato plant and about a dozen carrots! I might just put flowers in this year.

[Mo]

Another factor is water - potatoes are quite watery so obviously keeping the soil well watered (especially during hot dry weather when the tubers are developing) is essential. Water the soil rather than the foliage and try to avoid soil splashing up into the plant.

Finally - you don't have to harvest first and second earlies according to when they are expected to be ready. I have left mine until the plants have died back naturally before lifting them - not only are the potatoes much bigger, but the skin thickens which means they can also be carefully stored for late autumn / early winter usage.

You can overwater though - one year we had flavourless potatoes that had cacked in the middle. I suspect they had so much water that they grew too big diluting the flavour (though i could be wrong)

If slugs are bad as mine have been for the last few years, it's a balance between harvesting when they are too small and waiting till they have been hollowed out! So keep an eye on them.

[lancashire lass]

They put 10 bags of compost in them, I added another 6, and it’ s mostly vanished! There isn’t much depth either, and with the pulling up antics of very sweet but naughty birds, it’s been a money pit!

Compost is not soil but decomposed vegetable matter which continues to break down over time due mainly to a combination of weathering (during hot sunny days, the water content is lost and the fibrous material loses its moist cohesive character and then along comes the wind and rain which mechanically breaks it up further) and the normal action of soil microbes which chemically breaks it down further. I remember the first few years on the allotment plot was a nightmare - the heavy clay was like potters clay ... in winter it was wet, heavy and difficult to work with and in summer it baked into bricks. I was advised that digging in lots of compost would improve it, and during the first growing season it seemed to work but by the following year, the soil was once again clay. In this case, the soil fungus & bacteria that thrived in wet clay along with earthworms and weather (wet conditions) speeded up the decomposition and had become part of the soil.

I had to change tactics and try other things. First, compost is still a good medium to add to soil as it is full of nutrients that are beneficial to plants and allow the roots to grow and spread out. Digging in sand was my first attempt and it had mixed results. Sand and clay together acted a bit like cement despite using "sharp" sand rather than fine sand. However, with time and digging in lots of compostable material, the "soil" (clay, sand and fibrous material) gradually became workable. The key is to remember that it will never stay like that and needs lots of compost and compostable material dug in every year. The upside is that the depth of soil in the shallow raised beds gradually, albeit slowly as you might expect, increased over time.

The key was the compostable material - rather than buy or compost raw material first and then dig it in, I added it direct to the soil. This was done in late autumn after the beds had been cleared and dug over to break up clods (an ongoing problem with heavy clay soil) - I dug 1 foot / spade deep trenches (preferably where I would have planted the rows of vegetable plants) and buried whatever I would normally put into a compost bin (fruit & veg peelings, cardboard, paper, tea leaves & coffee grains, autumn leaves, contents from old plant pots / growbags and when I kept chickens, the chicken coop bedding) and then lightly cover with the soil. In spring I would add fresh (commercial) compost to the soil surface and lightly dig / rake in before sowing / planting in rows directly above the trenched areas - by the time the roots of those plants reached the compostable material, most of it had composted down and added nutrients and moisture for the roots to tap into. I can't see why this method would not work equally well on sandy soil.

[lancashire lass]

and with the pulling up antics of very sweet but naughty birds

Birds can be the gardener's friend and its foe - first, birds that peck at soil are looking for seeds, grubs and worms to eat while at the same time, their poop add a little fertilizer boost. Some of the grubs may well be harmless but quite a few can damage crops by eating the roots or coming above ground and damaging the foliage. I have no problem with small birds like robins and the blue tits which take insects including aphids, but blackbirds are little thieves (they will sneak in and take those ripened strawberries right before your eyes!) and pigeons are just downright destructive. From late autumn through to early spring, let the birds take their fair share but if they become a problem, then netting is advisable (especially for fruit crops like strawberries, currants and gooseberries and crops in the cabbage family which pigeons love)

Newly planted onion sets in particular attract birds for some reason. You don't bury the sets (unlike the garlic cloves) but partially nestle them in the soil surface so the top part of the set is poking above ground and birds will pull them up (maybe they think they look like food) Onions, once they start growing rarely need protection but for the first couple of weeks, I would lay netting over the bed (raised on bricks on the edge and between rows so it keeps it just off ground level) and this also prevents cats and foxes from digging around. Once the green shoots are an inch or 2 tall, the netting should be lifted off (otherwise the leaves will grow through the mesh) - leave the bricks / some twiggy branches scattered on the bed a little longer as this makes it difficult for cats for find a good poo spot.

A few more "pests" to consider - nothing more infuriating in spring after clearing a veg plot, raking it over to a fine tilth and sowing rows of seeds to find the following morning that your neighbour's cat has decided to use it as a toilet. It's not the cat's fault - he's just grateful you thought about his needs and made a lovely litter area for him. And if you have foxes in your area, don't be at all surprised to find he has dug up the plants you spent time nurturing (or money spent in the garden centre) and then to add insult, he also left scat for you to find - like the cat, he thinks you have done something for him and he is only marking his territory to stop others from invading the plot. Foxes in particular are attracted to the smell of chicken manure and fish / bone meal fertilizer (organic alternate to chemical fertilizer) ... so he's just looking for where you had buried the chickens when he decides to dig up the plot! Visits from deer depends on where you live and again, they can be a serious problem for fruit & veg growers. Squirrels might be a problem but personally I haven't ever encountered any. A friend of mine who plants daffodils on the other hand as an annual battle with the squirrels digging up the bulbs.

If growing cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower, then netting is an absolute must - and not just any old netting but one with a fine mesh. The female Cabbage White butterfly WILL lay eggs on exposed plants, and the caterpillars WILL devour the leaves to their stalks. Some garden centres / diy stores sell what is called bird / butterfly netting but some brands are not that good. The best netting I ever got was builders scaffold netting (go online and google search - it is surprisingly cheaper than you think) The Cabbage White butterfly seeks out the cabbage / broccoli plants by "tasting" the air and masking the scent is quite effective. I once had some surplus broccoli plants that I planted out next to some lavender plants while the main crop was under netting. Unfortunately the mesh of the netting was too big and the entire crop was devoured but the few near the lavender were untouched. Some gardeners go to extreme lengths and spray foul smelling solutions on the crop (such as liquid fertilizer made from soaking comfrey leaves is particularly smelly)

Aphids / blackfly are the worst - they love tender growth and appear out of nowhere in spring then multiply at an alarming rate and seedlings/young plants are particularly vulnerable. Broad beans seem to be very attractive to blackfly. I personally would not like to spray crops with pesticides because they not only kill off the aphids but other beneficial insects (like pollinating bees and ladybirds) as well. You can try a few things - a very dilute solution of washing up liquid in a spray bottle is quite effective as it is dries the soft parts of aphids and kills them without harming the other insects. The other is to grow companion plants amongst the crop - they either contain volatile oils / natural pesticide (French marigolds and in a greenhouse / polytunnel, grow basil (which needs warm temperatures to grow well) along with the tomato plants) which deter pests, or grow plants (called sacrificial plants) that appear more attractive to aphids (nasturtiums) than the crop itself.

The adult and larvae of Ladybirds are the gardener's friend! They love to eat aphids and will devour them in great quantities. To attract Ladybirds to your garden plot, plant flowering plants like marigolds, dahlias, daisies, asters, cosmos, Calendula, Coreopsis, tansies, yarrows, Zinnia or sunflowers. And to encourage them to stay, provide them with a "bug hotel" to hibernate over winter.

The Carrot fly is a sneaky pest - it is attracted to the smell of the carrot plant and lays eggs near the base of the plant and the larvae tunnel into the root. The carrot root appears okay but when it is prepared for cooking, the distinctive brown tracks are not appealing. Crops in the same carrot family also include parsnips though they seem to fare better than carrots. You can try a few things to avoid infestation:

- First, carrot flies are low flying insects and apparently unable to fly above 2 feet so you could erect a fine mesh netting (the flies are tiny) or plastic sheeting fence around the bed. The downside to that idea is that a breeze / wind might give the flies a lift into the bed. The other which I did find worked well was to grow carrots in tall containers (such as the blue plastic barrels ... however, you do need a lot of soil / compost to fill one) Another idea is to cover the crop with a horticultural fleece - you'll need to put bricks or other weights (like 2L pop bottles filled with water or sand) around the edges so that the flies can't get underneath.

- The volatile oils in carrots can be masked - companion planting could help and some people grow onions in the same bed. The downside to that idea is that onions need full sun to grow well and carrot foliage may shade them. Try growing a carrot fly resistant variety of carrot - these are still vulnerable to carrot fly but are not so attractive than other varieties due to lower levels of the volatile oil.

- Avoid thinning out surplus seedlings - when you bruise the leaves, the scent is carried in the air which attracts the carrot fly. So thinly sow the seeds to avoid having to thin out later.

- Sow carrot seeds in early summer - carrot flies are at their most active in spring so you can avoid the initial infestation. However, carrot flies have more than one generation in a year so you might get infestations later. You could also try sowing autumn carrot varieties (the seedlings will go dormant over winter and then continue to grow in spring for an early harvest before the carrot flies are active)

- Carrot flies are at their most active in late afternoon / early evening so avoid this time when watering the crop or doing a harvest (unless you intend clearing the entire bed)

[lancashire lass]

When the temperatures start to rise in spring, slugs and snails are more active and they particularly like vegetable plots where seedlings are tasty feasts (and worse, they don't even touch the weed seedlings) Whole rows of seedlings will disappear overnight (and seedlings hardening off in pots are also vulnerable) With the withdrawal of slug pellets from sale in the UK in 2022 (they contain metaldehyde which is toxic to wildlife such as frogs and hedgehogs), this can be a problem for some gardeners. Organic alternates have plusses and negatives.

First, let's knock the idea that slugs and snails will avoid going over "sharp" obstacles which is one of the suggestions often found in google searches ... I remember seeing an experiment back in school where we watched a snail go over the blade end of a scalpel and it didn't harm it. That's because the action of the "foot" is a rippling muscular contraction so the scalpel was not an obstacle.

However, slugs & snails do not tolerate dry conditions - during hot, dry, sunny weather you'll rarely see one around because they need moisture to get about and will hide in dark, damp shady places and only come out at night when it is cooler. You can use that to your advantage:

- First, remove potential hiding places if you can. This can be difficult because many of these are usually part of the veg plot such as compost bins, boards for raised beds, foliage, straw (often used in strawberry beds to protect the fruit from frosts) and so on.

- Dry sawdust round plants will protect them because the slime snails use to get about will be absorbed by the sawdust and it will repel them. Unfortunately, the weather rarely remains calm and dry in spring and if the wind doesn't blow the sawdust away, the rain will wet it and no longer be an effective barrier. One home made method is to bake egg shells and then crush them - the calcium carbonate in eggshells has a similar effect as dry sawdust (not the "sharp" edges as some people think) Crushed oyster shell (normally offered to chickens to naturally provide calcium in their diet) will also do the same thing as crushed eggs. It is fairly inexpensive and for sale in pet shops (or chicken feed specialist where you may be able to buy large packs which run out cheaper)

- Beer traps are great at attracting snails and snails and reducing their numbers on the veg plot. Bury bowls (the containers need to be deep enough that it can hold enough fluid to drown them) around the plot and fill with stale beer (or alternatively, a solution of brewer's yeast or marmite) You will however, need to empty out the dead ones regularly otherwise the traps will go foul rather quickly (tip them into the compost bin and put fresh solution in the trap)

- Spent coffee granules still contain high levels of caffeine and this can be toxic to them, or at the very least, deter them. Top up often as rain and watering will dilute and rinse the caffeine into the soil and become less effective. The coffee granules will eventually compost down over time.

- Copper (metal) is said to deter slugs and snails and you can buy copper tape to put round containers to stop them from crossing over (it has something to do with their slime interacting with the copper) However, it can be an expensive suggestion and not that effective in the vegetable plot where the slugs and snails may find alternate routes to your crop.

If you do find snails and slugs and too squeamish to step on them, it is better to have a bucket of water ready where you can pop them in to drown. Tossing them into your neighbour's garden might seem like a good idea but here's some bad news ... they have a good memory and will come back to your garden where they know they can find food.

As for slugs that damage potato crops:

If slugs are bad as mine have been for the last few years, it's a balance between harvesting when they are too small and waiting till they have been hollowed out! So keep an eye on them.

These aren't the same as the garden slugs that you find above ground. The slugs that eat potatoes live in the soil and will not come in contact with the measures you had put in place to repel / trap / kill the other slugs and snails.

Soil slugs like all slugs and snails prefer damp conditions and during a wet summer can be very active. And they like ground which has plenty of compostable material dug in for growing crops. If slug damage becomes a problem to potato crops, then either grow potato varieties with a shorter growing season (first and second earlies) and avoid main crop potato varieties so that you can lift them up earlier. Or look for potato varieties that are least susceptible (I once grew King Edwards and Rooster in the same bed - the Rooster were unscathed but the King Edwards was a disaster) The longer the crop is in the soil, the risk of slug damage is higher.

Alternatively, nematodes (live microscopic worms that infest the slugs) have proven to be effective but it does involve precise and multiple treatments during a growing season, and the cost might put some people off.

[lancashire lass]

You can overwater though - one year we had flavourless potatoes that had cacked in the middle. I suspect they had so much water that they grew too big diluting the flavour (though i could be wrong)

Hmmm, some plants are at risk of "overwatering" but usually because of poor drainage and roots sit in saturated conditions and "drown" (soil normally has small amounts of air pockets which temporarily fill with water and then drain away. The roots of plants need some of these air spaces to "breathe" (not the same as gas exchange in leaves) which is why they sometimes do poorly in compacted soil) but this is usually in pots and containers with poor drainage (or left in deep trays). Open beds are more likely to be affected by weather patterns which cause flooding than from regular watering. I think there is another factor at play.

There are many potato varieties on the market and most are bred to be resistant to certain pests and diseases in varying degrees. Soil-borne diseases can have an impact on root crops especially if they are more susceptible. The Potato Variety Database is a good site to find out more about the variety you want to grow and the levels of disease and pest resistance (just type the potato name in the search box and it will give you details)

In the case of flavourless potatoes and being cacked (sorry, not sure what that describes), the possibility might be down to a soil-borne disease rather than overwatering. I'm not sure flavour is affected by overwatering (the cells in the tuber might take up more water soon after being watered, but is usually temporary), but the tuber will grow bigger due to cell division (during the wet summer of 2007, the potato variety I grew called Kestrel were enormous and made the best baking potatoes and the flavour was fine. Luckily it was an early cropping potato and was not affected by blight which was particularly bad that year)

Flavourless potatoes can happen during exceptional weather seasons. After a disastrous year from blight, the following year I grew different blight resistant varieties from the Sarpo range). That year decided to be a dry season and I underestimated the watering needs. I still got a good yield but was very disappointed with the flavour - not even adding salt to the cooked potato made any difference (I tried baked, boiled and fried), and worse, the potatoes when boiled would break up into mush. I decided to add my review and disappointment to the seed supplier website and got a reply back - and it made sense. During dry conditions, the cells in the tuber shrink while still bulking up and during the cooking process, the cells then readily break apart from each other and forms the "mush". As for flavour, again it was suggested the dry conditions could have impacted it but also the soil content (that's why home grown "Jersey Royals" don't taste as nice as the original ones). I confess that I never grew any of the drought resistant potato varieties after that so cannot verify if that was the case.

[lancashire lass]

Just to add to the above post, I was reminded about another case of flavourless potatoes afterwards. During my first year on the allotment plot, I tried some taster potato varieties (about 5 seed potatoes per bag of different varieties so that you can grow lots of different ones without having to buy the 2kg packs of each) I remember being excited to try them out soon after harvesting (and being able to compare one variety against the other for taste) The Pentland Javelin (a first early variety) was disappointing but had been one of the best harvests so I was reluctant to throw them away. A few weeks later I gave them another go and was pleasantly surprised to find they were one of the best flavoured potatoes. That contradicted the notion that freshly dug first early potatoes taste the best.

Some potato varieties do taste better after storage rather than when freshly dug up (however, my Sarpo varieties never did, so something completely different) And potatoes stored over winter taste sweeter - which is part of the natural process when the starches in the tuber break down into sugars (the fuel that drives growth) in readiness for sprouting.

[lancashire lass]

Compost bins are very useful in making your own compost from kitchen and garden waste. You can easily make your own bins or contact your local authority / check their website to see whether they sell them (usually much cheaper than from garden centres or DIY stores, and most will deliver direct to your house for free to encourage more people to reduce household waste)

To make your own bin, simply tying 4 upright builders pallets together (most builders pallets are not re-used so you may be able to get some readily from building sites / neighbours having building work carried out. Blue stained pallets however, must be returned) is one of the easiest. You can use large containers but you must drill holes in the base & sides to drain water and allow air to enter to avoid anaerobic fermentation. If you can, site the bin in the garden where the compostable material will come in direct contact with soil (no need to remove grass as eventually this will rot down once the bin starts to fill up, but do dig out bramble roots ... the plants will take advantage of the extra nutrients and grow at a phenomenal rate) Soil contains natural microbes (bacteria and fungus) which help to break down the waste.

To make good compost and speed up the process, you need to ensure air is incorporated into the waste - after a few weeks, you might have to turn the waste over (fresh waste moved from the top to the bottom and vice versa) Using a garden fork will help incorporate air into the mass at the same time. Turning the compost over prevents anaerobic fermentation (without the presence of oxygen, microbes produce methane, composting will take longer and the bin will smell bad) You also need to mix a proportion of green waste (garden waste such as foliage & grass cuttings) with brown waste (paper, cardboard) - anyone who regularly mows a lawn will tell you, a pile of grass cuttings soon becomes compacted, foul smelling and slimy very quickly and takes longer to break down. Green waste contains nitrogen which is critical to the composting process - microbes use the nitrogen source to multiply and this speeds up composting. Another source of nitrogen is ... urine. Before shuddering at the thought, an active compost bin will not smell like a toilet as the urine gives the microbes a nutrient boost and speeds up the composting process. A weekly feed of diluted fresh urine in the compost bin is all that is needed. Don't let the contents in the bin dry out as microbes need water to multiply but try not to overwater as too much can be as bad as too little when air pockets become clogged. Also, a dry compost bin makes a good home for ants and rodents. Unfortunately, warm moist conditions attract and encourage slugs and snails to lay eggs in the compost ...

Compost bins are useful places to put the garden weeds but be aware that those plants with deep roots or seed heads (such as dandelions or dock) can survive composting and some (such as bramble or bindweed) will actually thrive in the compost bin (speaking from personal experience ...) The end result can be a compost which contains more viable weed material than you would be willing to return to the garden beds. Also be careful of what kitchen waste you add to the compost - potato peelings and tomato seeds in particular should be avoided for the same reason as weed roots and seed heads which can survive composting. On the other hand, you may get a useful crop of potatoes from the bin ...

The rate of composting is seasonal - in winter, the drop in temperature will affect microbial activity and will slow down but in spring will become active and peak in summer and early autumn. In autumn, weighting a plastic sheet / insulation over open bins will allow some retention of the heat & humidity that is generated and will prolong the composting process. Some people keep a compost bin in a greenhouse which provides just enough heat to prevent the greenhouse from getting too cold, but be careful as compost bins also contain insects (attracted by the composting or survived when garden waste was placed in the bin) as well as slugs / snails so may be unwelcome guests.

When a compost bin is working well, you will notice the level of material you had added to the compost bin will drop down on a daily basis. You soon quickly realise that it takes a lot of raw compostable material to make enough compost for your own use. As well as most other vegetable peelings and unwanted leaves / stalks, you CAN add cooked vegetables / pasta / rice but be aware there is a risk they may attract rats so only add in small amounts and mix well in the compost bin. Dried fruits and grains / flour that have passed their use by date can also be added to the bin but again, be aware that these may attract pests so only add them in small quantities. Like-wise, used pet bedding (straw / sawdust) and surplus cardboard (toilet rolls, cardboard packaging of food products but try to avoid corrugated cardboard as this is usually produced from wood and ideally should go for recycling) However, never add pet waste (dog or cat faeces) which may carry harmful diseases or parasites (especially if the compost is destined for the vegetable plot) and do not add fat or meat products to the compost bin. Avoid tea bags which contain plastic which will not decompose - instead, break up the bag and use the tea leaves. Used coffee grains are good for composting too.

Avoid woody material if possible as this will take much longer to compost down. To speed up the process you can use a shredder but will still take a long time to compost down. You can on the other hand, create a brush pile (such as from hedge & tree trimmings) instead - much like a compost site, woody trimmings in direct contact with bare soil will eventually compost down but it is a much slower process - large wood pieces take a long time to rot down. These piles are good hibernation sites for beneficial insects and depending on how they are constructed, hedgehogs and frogs (both are good for eating slugs in the garden) but be aware they can also be ideal sites for ants and rodents.

Autumn leaves can be put in the compost bin but take into account that it is considered a "brown" waste so will need to be mixed with "green" material, and the outdoor temperature will be dropping so affect microbial activity. If you gather a lot of leaves from your garden, you could instead use these to make leaf mould (either gather into bags or dedicate a composting area just for making leaf mould)

[lancashire lass]

Manure is a good source of nitrogen for growing plants and there are various sources, each with their own good and bad points.

First, raw / fresh manure can do more harm than good as it contains high levels of urine which can scorch plants. Most allotment gardeners may be able to source farmyard (cow), chicken or stable manure (horse / donkey and in rare instances depending on location and access, zoo animals) which may be delivered to the plot and the pile is then allowed to be weathered over several years (yes, years!) The process can be speeded up by turning the pile over but it is very hard work (and heavy) and smelly. Adding some of the fresh manure to a working compost bin will not only give the composting microbes a nitrogen boost and speed up composting but another way to reduce the harsh effects of raw manure and can be dug into the soil sooner.

Commercial manure ready to dig in the soil can be purchased from some garden centres - dried chicken manure in pellet form, or sacks of farmyard manure (a word of warning ... if transporting farmyard manure in your car, it is eye-wateringly smelly which lingers) Farmyard manure tends to be used for improving the soil condition in the long term (up to 3 years), whereas use of chicken manure is short lived with a boost of nitrogen for those crops which need a lot (sweetcorn, pumpkin and winter squashes, leafy crops like lettuce) in a single growing season.

Another source of "manure" can be from pet bedding (rabbits, hamster) but these may be better added to compost bins. If you keep a few chickens or other poultry, the soiled coop bedding can be used (either dig into the soil and leave to weather overwinter, or added to the compost bin) Both of these type of beddings may attract the attention of foxes as potential food sources nearby (the animal rather than the manure) so be prepared for any activity. Do not use soiled cat litter for use on vegetable plots (although soiled compressed sawdust pellet litter can be scattered on other beds used for flowers)

When using farmyard manure in a vegetable plot, you will need a 3-4 year growing plan. Manure is best dug into the soil in late autumn ready for spring planting the following year. Any remaining harsh content will be diluted out in the soil, while microbes and earthworms will thrive, breaking down solid parts (earthworm poop is better than the manure itself for plants and they are mobile in the soil so help to spread the nutrients around)

Year 1 is when the nutrients and nitrogen from manure are highest. Grow potatoes, leafy vegetables, sweetcorn and winter squashes which are heavy nitrogen users so will benefit from the addition of manure in the soil.

Year 2 - most other vegetable crops will grow well but avoid carrots and parsnips (high nitrogen levels in the soil tend to make carrot and parsnip root to divide into multiple rootlets near the soil surface - a simple fork produces "2" roots which can be prepared for cooking, but a cluster of roots (and trapped soil) is more difficult.

Year 3 - grow carrots and parsnips. There is still plenty of nitrogen in the soil for these vegetables and they will form good roots.

Liquid manure can literally be manure diluted with water to make a slurry which can be used to water growing plants where a nitrogen boost is needed (especially when the growing plants don't seem to be growing as well as they should) Liquid fertilizer can be made from vegetable matter that is left to soak in buckets of water until they rot down and the water turns dark brown (and smelly) The most common plant matter used to make home made fertilizer are the leaves cropped from comfrey plants, but even rhubarb leaves (trimmed off the stalks when harvested) can be used. Dilute to a weak tea colour before watering. This type of liquid fertilizer tend to be rich in other essential nutrients such as potassium (ideal for weekly feeds of fruiting crops like tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers) rather than nitrogen.

Green manure are plants that have multiple functions. An autumn sown crop of green manure (such as ryegrass) will grow and not only take up nutrients from the soil into the plants but reduces the impact of winter rain and snow on soils (washing away nutrients and soil or compaction from slow drainage of water on cleared beds) In spring, the plants are dug into the soil and allowed to rot down to return the nutrients to the soil. The fibrous material of the green manure also help to improve soil structure - heavy clay soil is loosened and sandy soil will benefit from the vegetable material and retain moisture better.

When a green manure is dug into the soil, there is a period when you should leave the plot vacant to allow the process to complete before sowing or planting out seedlings. Soil microbes take up the nitrogen from the soil to multiply and compost the green manure vegetable matter - this competing of resources robs the emerging seedlings of essential nitrogen available to grow and weakens them resulting in poor growth. When the composting cycle is complete, the soil microbes die and release the nitrogen back into the soil which can then be accessed by the plants.

Some green manures can be sown in spring so that the bed will be ready to sow / plant crops to grow in late autumn and over winter. Mustard is often grown just before planting potatoes - the volatile oils in mustard leaves act like a biofumigant reducing the impact of some pests and diseases when a natural gas (isothiocyanate) is released from the crushed leaves and is trapped under weighted sheets of plastic. Digging the whole plants into the soil improves soil structure and fertility. Nitrogen fixing bacteria that grow on the roots of plants like lupins and clover are used to increase nitrogen levels in soils by obtaining nitrogen direct from air and converting into a biological nitrogen source which most microbes can use to breakdown and make available to growing plants.

Spent mushroom compost can be purchased from mushroom farms and is a good soil improver. The fresh compost tends to contain higher than normal levels of lime which can raise soil pH - most vegetable crops do well round about neutral pH to lightly hard, but some plants like the cabbage family (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli) prefer raised pH so will benefit from the addition of spent mushroom compost. The fibrous compost when dug in to the soil incorporates air which is good for compacted soil types like clay.

[Mo]

The female Cabbage White butterfly WILL lay eggs on exposed plants, and the caterpillars WILL devour the leaves to their stalks.

Aphids / blackfly are the worst - .... Broad beans seem to be very attractive to blackfly.

I used to squish the eggs & caterpillars of cabbage whites. need to keep at it though.

There are 2 sorts of Broad bean, green and white, I forget which but one can be planted in Autumn and get ahead of the blackfly. The other sort has a better flavour. GQT recommended pinching out the tips of the plants, since it is the young shoots they go for.

[lancashire lass]

There are 2 sorts of Broad bean, green and white

Technically all the broad bean varieties are the same - some may grow taller and produce long pods and more beans, others are dwarf size, some taste nicer than others and so on.

but one can be planted in Autumn and get ahead of the blackfly

Not so much get ahead of the blackfly but the goal is to get an early crop. The variety is called Aquadulce claudia which can be sown in late summer / early autumn (the soil should be warm enough for germination before the frosts arrive and top growth slows down) It is a dwarf variety (doesn't grow much taller than a foot) which is more tolerant of winter weather than most other varieties. Having saying that, during a particularly mild winter, other varieties that I had sown in the autumn had survived to give an early crop. The following winter we had a really cold one - snow arrived in mid-November and didn't thaw (briefly) until after Christmas before we had more snow. Temperatures were well below zero ... the entire lot were killed off.

The other thing to worry about growing broad beans over winter is the risk of damage from strong winds. The dwarf variety fares better than the tall ones, but it would be better to grow the plants with good wind breaks. Damaged plant tissue allows fungal diseases to enter and broad beans are prone to one called Chocolate Spot

GQT recommended pinching out the tips of the plants, since it is the young shoots they go for.

That is correct ... however, by the time the plants have put on enough growth after the winter months to sustain the developing pods and you finally get round to nipping off the tips, the black fly has already arrived.

[lancashire lass]

I forgot to mention horse manure in the earlier post. One of the major differences between horses and cows is the digestive system. Cows chew the cud so break down vegetable matter much more efficiently than horses. The manure from either animals are fine but many weed seeds eaten by horses pass through unscathed. Beds with horse manure dug in tend to be weedier than most. Personally I didn't find it a problem other than the nettles did seem to thrive much more in the horse manure pile than in the cow manure pile.

[lancashire lass]

I stopped using farmyard manure on my allotment plot a few years before I finally gave it up so I'd forgotten about the Aminopyralid herbicide which had a devastating impact on vegetable growing. Unfortunately, the problem hasn't gone away ...

Aminopyralid is a selective herbicide used on some farms - normally used to tackle broad leafed weeds leaving crops in the grass family (wheat, oats and so on) unscathed. The problem started to affect gardeners when their (broad leafed) potato and bean crops grew poorly and the realisation that the herbicide was persistent in the crops and even after digestion of the animals. Those vegetable plots became unusable for broad leafed crops for several seasons after that.

There was a temporary ban on the use of the herbicide but I believe this has been overturned. The herbicide in manure will eventually degrade but involves leaving for much longer than you would normally, and turning it over regularly (not the easiest thing to do with manure when it is wet and heavy) Testing whether it was still active in the manure meant growing some bean seeds in pots containing the manure and seeing whether the leaves took on that characteristic contorted appearance or looked green and healthy before digging the manure into the vegetable plot.

[PK]

This looks to be a comprehensive guide LL. In terms of growing your own to keep food costs down, I would emphasise the importance of preserving harvests so that they can be consumed over the year as well as avoiding wasting inevitable gluts: storing, freezing, dehydrating, pickling and fermenting, preserve making etc. We do a lot of this, but it take time and attention. Perhaps you will go more into this later in the sequence.

The other thing I would emphasise is composting, which you have covered well. Soil fertility and soil structure is so important for sustained good harvests. It is surprising how much compostable material even a small space can generate. We have a large plot and I have just completed mulching the whole lot using 4 cubic metres of home produced compost. I do this every year. Our sandy soil can take as much compost as can be put into it. Bought bags of compost are expensive and is not bulky enough and consequently rots down quickly.

[Mo]

it. Bought bags of compost are expensive and is not bulky enough and consequently rots down quickly.

I wonder if garden centres and gardeners use the word compost to mean something different? Seed compost and potting compost as opposed to the sort from the compost heap that improves the soil (lightens clay or adds organic material to sand).