Category Archives: mulches

Green compost in a No Dig Bed

One of the problems with starting a No Dig bed is that to make one you need either well rotted home made compost or well rotted farmyard manure both of which you may not have if your new to gardening or live in a town or city

Most councils are now obliged to run a “Green waste” recycling scheme and as long as they conform to British Standards Institution’s Publicly Available Specification 100:20  11 there perfect for garden use

Every batch of compost made to this standard is analysed and tested for impurities and contaminants by an independent laboratory, and all procedures are fully documented part of this test is the germination and growing of Tomatoes to test for  contaminants

 

The result is a compost perfect for all gardens, that can also be used as an environmentally-responsible alternative to peat but with a higher PH so also help cut costs by reducing use of artificial fertilizer and lime

 

 

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Replant Disease

Question :rose-on-yardI want to replace an old rose but one of my neighbours mentioned that I should never plant a rose where another has been. Is this just an old wives tale or should I listen to the advice. 

Replanting roses

Replant disorder or replant disease refers to the problem of re-establishing plants in soil where the same species was previously grown. Roses are particularly prone, though it can affect other trees and shrubs namely

Apple,Cherry, Peach,Pear,Quince,Plum and Cistus

It can occur quite quickly after planting even Continue reading Replant Disease

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MULCHES AND MULCHING

Sounds like a double act and in fact this simple technique can bring more than two positives to the garden,quick, easy and great for you garden,lots of materials can be used as mulches,Manure,seaweed,compost,leafmould,grass cuttings,cardboard even wool all of then adding vital nutrients to our garden

This is the way we add all the fertility to our No-Dig beds allowing the soil  organisms to  incorporate the mulch into the vegetable bed

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MAKING PLANT FOOD FOR FREE

One of the easiest savings we can make in our garden is to produce our own liquid feeds.  A variety of plants can be used for this and will give us different feeds suitable for doing different tasks.  In my film I cover how to make an early season nitrogen rich feed and two ways of making potassium rich feed which is great for bulking up root crops and onions at this time of the season.

The other fantastic free resource we have which we should make more use of is urine this post explains why

The power of Pee

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TOMATO GROWING IN QUADGROW

This seemingly simple piece of equipment overcomes two of the major problems of growing tomatoes, that of over watering and blossom end rot, whilst simultaneously doubling the crop produced.  Also when growing peppers, aubergines or dwarf beans it gives you an increased yield without the daily requirement of watering.

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