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July update, potato and onion harvests, compost quality, saving seed, summer pruning, garden visits

Written by

Charles Dowding

Last Updated

July 16, 2016

A question from my inbox: “I've not seen mentioned how Charles continues to keep his gardens thriving. Is it just adding more compost? Does he fertilize?”

The answer is

no fertilisers
one application of compost, mostly in early winter. Compost is soil food, storing nutrients until plants ask for them, mediated by soil life such as mycorrhizal fungi, which thrive in undug soil.

Homeacres harvests July 7th

Lettuce picked 12 weeks, new planting of chard, narrow weed-free paths, no sides,

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East side of Homeacres garden mid July

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Waiting for warmth, Black Pineapple in the polytunnel

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Potatoes and new plantings

Summer weather is now here, especially to southern Britain after fine weather drizzle on St Swithins Day.

However blight is established in most of the UK and if you see brown leaves, best cut off all stems just above ground level. Then harvest as soon as possible, before slugs get interested.

In a trial here, the potato plants on a bed which we loosened with a fork are the only ones to have succumbed to blight, so far. The plants next to them, in undug soil and with the same amount of compost on top, were blight free. Yields were 6.3kg from the dug, 7.4kg from undug with the same mushroom compost mulch, and 7.9kg from undug with cow manure mulch.

See more info on potato and onion harvesting in a video I just posted. Also a super fast video on Instagram and Facebook.

Before harvest of potatoes: blight is only on the dug strip nearest to camera. Total yield was 21.6kg or 48lb.

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Harvest of Marie Rose left, Charlotte right, harvest by pulling not digging

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Leeks planted straight after with nothing added to soil except water

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Compost quality and adding nutrients

Green waste compost can look black and finished before it actually is. My heap arrived a month ago and was 60C, steaming hot; its still 51C, one foot in. If you take delivery of steaming compost like this, its best left in a heap to finish composting, say from now until November.

Similar for wood chips and shavings. I just took delivery of a tree surgeon’s waste which contains green leaves too, its composting at 52C after two days.

See the photos of French beans where woody ingredients are still using nutrients for their own decomposition. I added chicken manure pellets (New Horizon organic) to one row, hence the difference in leaf colour.

Cupidon beans potted into fresh green waste compost

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Cupidon beans potted into fresh green waste compost

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Weedkiller aminopyralid in some manures and composts

This is becoming a problem again. This link has information.

I recommend you do “bioassays” with tomato, potato and legume plants to check for aminopyralid contamination. This year, no problems here. Its worth checking horse manure mainly, perhaps green waste and other composts too.

OK tomato plants in mushroom compost left, green waste compost right

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Plant on right is in compost containing aminopyralid in 2014

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Again, on right is compost with aminopyralid from horse manure

Summer pruning of fruit trees

There is still just time for pruning, to keep trees in your desired shape, and encourage more fruit buds to form this autumn. We cut off about half of this year’s growth and took out a few overlapping branches.

The apple tree below is in its fourth summer, I planted it as a whip (large stick).

In early July, before pruning

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After pruning and a bit more fruit thinning

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First tomatoes

Its that time! Undercover, Sungold has been ripening for a while, closely followed by Garden Pearl and Rosella: all taste really good.

Beef tomatoes take longer and need the warmth which looks to be arriving now. Fruit set over the last month has been poor from a lack of sunshine and warmth, especially on beef tomatoes. Some trusses of Black Russian are completely missing here.

Early Garden Pearl in a pot of multipurpose compost, greenhouse

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Sungold in the greenhouse, early july

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Roselle left, sungold, Garden Pearl right

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Saving seed

Do check out Real Seeds excellent information.

The easiest veg to save seed from are peas, lettuce and non-hybrid tomatoes, as they breed true without cross pollinating, and maintain vigour from the seed of only one plant, without siblings to cross pollinate with.

Lollo Rossa from a self sown plant in a pot by the wall, same pot as grew it parent

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Lettuces for seed from March plantings: Lollo Rossa, Winter Density, Bijou

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Harvesting onion, shallot, garlic

Any garlic still in the ground needs harvesting asap, before its outer skin rots. Allium bulbs are best pulled when there is still some green on their leaves, and onions can have their tops bent over to help the necks to dry.

We just did that for shallots grown from seed, which were otherwise thinking to continue growing upwards, unlike the shallots from bulbs which started to yellow two weeks ago.

From same planting, on right was harvested two weeks earlier with green leaves

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Shallot harvest, Zebrine from seed, dug bed on left and undug on right

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Onions from a module sown mid Feb, planted March & 5 weeks under fleece

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Composting area roof

Mark the builder, my neighbour, came with two lads and put this up in a day.

Prior to that, Felix and I had done the hard yards of hole digging: Felix used a Kanga drill, to break through through some concrete foundations of a 1960s greenhouse.

Now its great to have a dry area for the compost heaps, and for drying onions etc. What would you grow up it?

Preparing for erection, holes dug 18in deep

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During construction July 10th, Mark drilling

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The finished article, needs clematis says Steph

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Soil discoveries

It was fascinating to dig holes for the posts! I found dense silt, deeper than in other parts of Homeacres. Previously I have gardened on soils ranging from Cotswold brash to white clay. No dig is successful on these soils too.

I am surprised at the number of leatherjackets still in the grass roots, and also found roots from a Bramley apple tree, twenty feet from where it had been growing.

Soil hole with tree root

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Leatherjacket in the grass roots

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Bund of soil around the heap of old manure

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Cucumbers undercover

Cucumbers are demanding of water and grow so fast, here they are already going over the polytunnel top wire support at 2m height. I simply encourage the main stem to loop over and then come down again. Some gardeners pinch out the main stem and allow two sideshoots but I find one stem enough. Also I pinch out every other cucumber so that fruits grow steadily, without feast and famine.

Cucumbers early July, all female hybrids Saturn and Carmen

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Mid July and they are running out of room

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Allowing the tops to grow on then loop down over the wire

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No dig flowers

For my flower borders I use about an inch a year of compost mulch, green waste is ideal as flowers are less hungry than veg. I have few shrubs so slug habitats are few, except near the fence where Gert’s border on the other side is full of ivy and other green leaves. There I grow bulbs, verbenas, tangerine sage etc there and keep zinnias and marigolds for the more slug free areas.

This border was a mass of weeds 3 years ago, bindweed included

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I love walking past this bed on my way to the compost loo

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New videos

I hope you enjoy the new videos which are arriving on You Tube. My son Edward is gaining film and editing skills and spent an afternoon here making some new ones, for example this on clearing and replanting. Felix took some photos of the filming.

Edward filming onion harvest

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And a potato harvest

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Garden visits 1 Soho Farmhouse Great Tew, Oxon

With the resources of Soho House behind her, Anna Greenland has created a beautiful productive garden on half an acre of compacted clay.

It had heavy machinery all over it, during building work elsewhere on the site. The machines also scraped off and stacked the soil, not improving its life qualities. Beds were then filled with this soil and horse manure, which included wood shavings, so not an ideal start.

Nonetheless most growth is good, and promises more as the sticky soil below bed level is gradually healed by worms and other organisms.

Anna Greenland, no dig parsnip

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Carrots early July, barrier against root fly

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Carrots early July, barrier against root fly

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Garden visits 2, Fred Bonestroo at Close Farm nr Tetbury

Fred’s long experience of market gardening allows him to crop seven acres of vegetables on his own. Previously he had six employees, when the Duchy ran a box scheme.

On part of the site are heritage apple trees from Brogdale, purchased by the Prince of Wales. Its a fertile, sandy loam and Fred shapes beds with a special power harrow, three beds between each row of trees. Weeding is mostly by hand and I love his home made hoes, including a bronze one. Some of the beds have gaps where Fred experienced difficulty in making a seed bed during some tricky weather.

This is not a problem in the no dig polytunnels, mulched with wood chips delivered for free, and tomatoes are the main crop.

Fred also has a pile of two year old and finer wood chips which he has turned, and it sieves out nicely now for potting compost.

Fred with his home made hoe in the celeriac

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Squash planting and that is not Fred!

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Two year old wood chip compost

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Garden visits 3, Tintinhull National Trust

The no dig vegetable garden looks good, considering it is managed mostly by one volunteer Peter Bradford, with some help from other volunteers.

Until ten years ago the soil was double dug by squaddies from the local air force base. Now it simply has a winter mulch of half to one inch green waste compost. Peter would like to spread more, to improve cropping and reduce weeding.

Slugs and rabbits are difficult to control because they have so many hiding places. Rabbits had grazed the French beans and I have been suffering this at Homeacres. Slugs and snails forage outwards from the catmint where they can stay moist by day.