Gardening
Allotments
June 18, 2008: extra protection for shivering summer plants
Summer plants are suffering in these chilly spring-like temperatures, so rallying all his organic know-how to produce a nourishing feed, Terry Walton sets about helping his charges fight off threats to their survival
Many of you reading this will be aware that we are rapidly approaching the summer solstice. The days have reached their peak of daylight and plants should be enjoying the long, warm days of June. But in the Welsh valleys this is not so and over the last few days the nights have been very cold and for the most part very dry. This confuses the tenderest of plants and some of them like the runner beans and pumpkins are exhibiting a yellow tinge to their leaves. This is their way of showing they are not happy with these wildly varying temperatures.
Where is global warming when you need it?
Most other plants are thriving despite the temperature changes and potatoes and onions seem to prefer the cooler conditions.
Now is the time to give all our plants some tender loving care and a boosting feed. Our soil started out very fertile with masses of compost, well-rotted manure and its fertility further improved by green manures. But the plants are growing strongly and like ourselves need a well balanced diet to fight diseases and grow healthily.
Being organic, feeding them with masses of fertilisers is not an answer so I have to look to other means of supplying all the balanced nutrients they need. There are lots of natural ways of doing this and other plants like nettles and comfrey when rotted down in water provide a good balanced diet.
My favourite means of liquid feeding my crops is sheep droppings which are placed in a hessian sack and suspended in a dustbin of water. These were readily available on the hillside surrounding the allotments for many years but the sheep have disappeared these days and I have to look to friendly farmers in the vale for my gift to make this nourishing liquid. A cupful per two-gallon watering can, stirred in well, fed twice a week brings the colour back to the leaves of these struggling plants.
My other, smellier, form of feed and natural insecticide is rhubarb leaves. When collecting my stalks of delicious rhubarb for my crumble, I remove the leaves and place them in a dust bin and allow them to steep for a few weeks. When I remove the lid from this bin it exudes a dreadful smell of decay, it would make hair grow on a bald man’s head. However, for plants this is sweet perfume indeed!
Stir this evil-smelling brew and water your brassicas with it in a neat undiluted form. This will coat the leaves with a foul aroma which completely confuses the cabbage white butterfly and deters it from laying its eggs, as it thinks the plant is dying and so it's pointless in laying on a dying plant. The excess liquid flows down the stem to the roots where it feeds the plant and will also to some extent deter the cabbage root fly from laying its eggs at the root. I don’t take any chances with this being the ultimate deterrent for the fly and do a 'belt and bracers' job with collars around the roots as well.
With all this effort you hope that the brassica family is now safe from all predators!
My twenty-first-century additions to my repertoire of feeding mediums, the wormery and Bokashi, provide the other feeding agents to boost the vitality and healthy growing of my plants.
These produce, as by products, very nourishing liquids - the probotics of the plant world - providing good bacteria to nourish healthy, strong growth which helps fight attacks by the many pests lurking out there.
So you see plants are not unlike ourselves in needing a good balanced, healthy diet to grow big and strong and fight off disease
Being organic does not mean your plants must suffer - there are plenty of natural ways of feeding and keeping pests at bay while still providing us with tasty natural food.
More from Terry Walton
- June 11: good weather for gardeners
- Terry Walton's allotment sagas archive
- Terry Walton explains the workings of a wormery in this blog from March 2008
