Mindful meditation and snails

I decided to take down another bush today. Actually, that's not true, I decided to measure the garden and its existing hard-landscaping features, but this bush got in the way:

So I decided to cut it back from over the path so I could measure where the path was more easily. Well, I still haven't done that, as I ended up cutting pretty much the whole thing back.

And then I got sent some work, so I stopped to do it.
While I was cutting back the bush, I discovered two things:
1. the honeysuckle does come from our side of the fence (which is good, as I have a past history of allergy to honeysuckle, and if it comes back that means it's my choice whether this one lives or dies) and
2. that bush was hiding an absolute ton of snails.

As a gardener I needed those snails gone. I've already lost enough plants to snails and slugs that I need to get rid of any snails I find. The thing is that I've been doing mindfulness meditation for my pain, and mindfulness meditation is strongly derived from Buddhist meditation. This causes me a bit of a problem, as Buddhism says you shouldn't harm your fellow creatures (including snails). Now, I find a lot of what Buddhism says very useful advice - or at least, I find a lot of what they told us at the Buddhist centre where I used to go to try and learn meditation very useful advice. And that makes me feel very guilty about killing snails.
As seems standard for human psychology, I have more worries about killing them by a method where I'm an active agent in their death - i.e. by stamping on them or drowning them by popping them into water, than where I play a less active role - for instance through slug pellets or a beer trap, despite the fact the snails end up just as dead and I'm not convinced that any of those deaths is pleasanter or quicker than the others - except maybe the beer death. For instance, I filled a small ice cream tub with water and a bit of washing up liquid and popped all of those snails in it. In fact, I pretty much filled the ice cream tub with snails. But I feel bad saying so on this blog (even though I strongly suspect that the two pictures above are actually at least partially snail graveyards, as some of those snails were very firmly stuck and the snails inside did not seem very well hydrated, so may well already have been dead).
Nevertheless, I put all of them into a tub of water with the intention that none would survive – although I did save as many of the woodlice who fell in by accident as I could. The snails that were curled up in their shells seemed not to survive my slightly washing-up liquidy water at all, but some of the others made several attempts to climb out, which made me feel even worse (because I didn't let them). I might need more washing-up liquid next time. It's surprising how much washing up liquid vegetable gardening involves. I don't know what farmers did before they invented it.

Year one: lessons learned

I think I harvested more in lessons learned for next year than I did in vegetables from my patch this year. I have now pulled up the rest of my vegetables (except for some leeks which are still growing, but may well not survive the replacement of our fences). So, here are my lessons:
Lesson 1: Space

Many vegetables need a lot more space than I gave them credit for. Because of their outer leaves, they get a lot bigger than the vegetable you see in the shops. If it weren't for slugs and snails eating holes in the cabbage leaf in the picture above, the cauliflower beneath it would barely be able to see daylight. If the seed packet says space them 30 cm apart, treat that as a minimum, not a maximum requirement. Also, my failure to give them enough space meant that it was easy for slugs and snails to crawl from one plant to the next across all the touching leaves, thwarting my barrier attempts to protect some of my plants with copper slug rings. Which brings me on to:
Lesson 2: Slugs, snails and insect pests

Although I largely successfully protected my cabbages from caterpillars I only got to eat about two leaves of them because they got ravaged by slugs and snails and other insect pests. I think I may have to become less organic about my approach to slug and snail control next year and I'm also planning to use either agricultural fleece or insect netting over my cabbages (if I grow them), as they don;t need pollinating, but do need protecting from pretty much everything. I'd like to be organic about my growing, so I may have another go with copper if I manage to get raised beds in. The plan is to run copper tape around all of the outside of the planks around the raised bed. However, I'm still not confident that will work. I killed dozens and dozens of slugs and snails this year (I'd guess more than 100), but it was never enough. They still decimated my crops. So, there will be non-organic slug pellets around my brassicas and legumes next year to try and reduce the garden's population of molluscs, and then the next year I'll see if I can go organic again.
Lesson 3: Fertilise, fertilise, fertilise

A lot of my plants simply did not have enough nutrients available to them to grow properly. I threw a bit of organic fertiliser about once, but I should have thrown a lot more around repeatedly and ideally I should have added more compost to the soil than I did too. I wouldn't even have needed to dig it in. If I'd spread compost over the top of the soil it would have worked its own way down, as that's what compost does.
Lesson 4: Late June is a bit late to be sowing seeds or planting out seedlings in England

Despite the fact I only planted plants whose seed packets said June was still OK for sowing, my rocket bolted really quickly (it probably wouldn't have been so desperate to flower so quickly if planted earlier in the year).

Although the two beans that grew at all were looking pretty healthy at this point, this was way too small for late September and I don't think I'd have ended up with any beans even if the plants hadn't all been eaten in the past couple of weeks.

Also, some of my veg failed to get to a decent size despite me leaving them in for months (in fairness, I'm not 100% certain if this was a late sowing or a fertlise, fertilise, fertilise problem).
The radishes worked out pretty OK (alright, I had all sorts of difficulties with them, but June being too late to plant them wasn't one of them as far as I can tell), and the leeks may still work out, as they still have some growing time left until their latest harvesting date of January.
Lesson 5: Use proper bamboo sticks as support sticks instead of found wood

I have strong suspicions that those holes in the sticks I was using could be woodworm and I have my fingers crossed that it either hasn't infected anything else or has only infected the fence - which is about to be replaced. In case, like me, you don't live within walking distance of a garden centre and can't fit sticks as long as you need in your car, you can always order sticks online. These sticks have now gone in a green waste bag and will be going off to the council for composting and sterilisation.

On the plus side, all the veg that I ripped up has pretty much filled my compost heap and added a load of greens (nitrogen-rich organic matter), which is good because I have a load of browns (carbon-rich organic matter) that I'm about to add when I cut down a load of bushes around the garden, and that should balance it nicely.

The vegetable patch is now down to just a few remaining leeks and a solitary carrot.

Bean and gone

I don't know what happened, it was OK a couple of weeks ago, but the bean bit the dust. I assume it got eaten by slugs and snails who were clever enough to climb up the sticks I was using to support it to get to it. Here's its whole life story.

Seedling

Leaves completely removed by slugs, slug ring added as protection

The slug ring works and the bean makes a comeback

Flowers!

The bean reaches a good size...

...but is then attacked by black fly.

It survives the black fly, but something eats all its leaves

So I dug it into the ground when I cleared out the bed to retain the nitrogen it was storing in its roots.

Adding browns to my compost heap (a small shrub bites the dust)

I took a couple of days off work this week because I've been having trouble with my back and I wanted to give it a chance to settle. On the other hand, I also got some new meds from the doctor that made my pain feel a bit better, so I decided to spend the time doing some gardening – possibly not technically the best idea for me physically, but a great idea for my sanity; not being able to do anything that increases my pain (i.e. anything at all) does not make me a happy bunny.
We have a lot of large shrubs and trees in the garden that need to go. We're getting the people who are replacing the fence to remove the trees, but that still leaves a lot of mature shrubs that need to go, so I decided to start with a small one:

I chopped all the branches off with secateurs.

Then I sawed off the stump with a little saw thing.

I took the bin off the compost heap and chopped the twigs and branches onto the heap with secateurs.

Then I mixed it all up with a fork (as it was mainly vegetable peelings and grass in there before - i.e. greens) and added some worms I found when I was pulling up some weeds by the back fence (because worms are good for composting).

Then I put the bin back on. What I didn't do was water it, because I'd forgotten that part of the instructions for making compost. I've got to try and remember to do that tomorrow (which might encourage it to do the hot composting thing, but hopefully the worms will escape before it gets too hot for them).
Overall, the small bush has now gone. Except the roots, which I left in the ground to rot down before I try and remove them, as my back's definitely not up to removing them straight away any more, as that's quite some hard work. And my back doesn't feel too bad considering either - only a little bit of pain and I'm not expecting too much difficulty sleeping on it.

What are brown and green compost and how do you balance them?

At my last gardening course lesson, I finally found out what they mean by "brown" and "green" compost. You're supposed to keep a balance of in your compost heap, and I'd been doing it all wrong because I'd been taking the brown and green instruction too literally.

In fact, in this context, the word "brown" is used to refer to matter that's rich in carbon and "green" is used to refer to things that are rich in nitrogen. A lot of the things that are rich in nitrogen (like grass clippings) are genuinely green and a lot of things that are rich in carbon (like wood) are genuinely brown. The problem is that not everything in the brown (carbon) category is actually brown and not everything in the green (nitrogen) category is genuinely green (for instance, tea leaves, coffee grounds and potato peelings all fall under the "green" category).

People sometimes use other terms instead of brown and green, but I don't actually find those any more helpful. The greens are sometimes instead referred to as "soft" or "hot" and the browns are sometimes referred to as "hard" or "cold", but actually, that wouldn't help me work it out either. What I find most helpful in distinguishing the two lists is that the nitrogen-rich greens are quick to rot and the carbon-rich browns are slow to rot. I've got enough experience of compost heaps to have a sense of what's going to rot quickly and what's going to stick around for ages that I can quickly work out which is which. But having a list is really helpful, so here it is:

Greens (= nitrogen-rich ingredients = soft ingredients = hot ingredients) (quick to rot)

Grass clippings

Raw vegetable peelings

Tea bags, tea leave, coffee grounds

Young green weed growth (avoid weeds with seeds)

Soft green prunings

Animal manure from herbivores (e.g. cows, horses, rabbits, guinea pigs) - don't use manure from non-herbivores at all

Comfrey leaves

Nettles

Urine (diluted with water 20:1)

Browns (= carbon-rich ingredients = hard ingredients = cold ingredients) (slow to rot)

Cardboard (e.g. cereal packets, egg boxes, toilet roll tubes etc.)

Paper (including junk mail and shredded paper)

Bedding from herbivore pets (e.g. rabbits, guinea pigs) - hay, straw, shredded paper, wood shavings

Tough hedge clippings

Woody prunings

Old bedding plants

Bracken

Sawdust

Wood shavings

Fallen leaves (but a better use of them is to make leaf mould)

Now you need to what to do with these ingredients. This depends on whether you want a cool heap or a hot heap or to go a hybrid route. I'll either be going the cool route or the hybrid route, as the cool route's the easiest and my back thanks me for doing everything the easiest way possible. Here are the three options:

Upcycled compost bin at the Carshalton Community Allotment made from discarded fridge doors to help keep the heat in (the perspex lid on the top is usually kept shut)

Hot heap
1. Gather enough material to fill your compost container at one go. Some of this may have been stored in a cool heap and have started to rot slightly. Make sure you have a mixture of greens and browns.
2. Chop up any tough items using shears, secateurs, a sharp spade (laying items out on the grass to avoid jarring) or a shredder.
3. Mix the ingredients together as much as possible before adding to the container. In particular, mix items that tend to settle and exclude air, such as grass clippings and shredded paper, with more open items that tend to dry out. Fill the container, watering as you go.
4. Within a few days the heap is likely to get hot to the touch. When it begins to cool down or a week or two later, turn the heap. Remove everything from the container or lift the container off and mix it all up so that the outside of the heap is on the inside and vice versa. Add water if it is dry or dry material (browns) if it is soggy. Replace the bin.
5. The heap may well heat up again. The new supply of air you've mixed in allows aerobic microbes to continue their work. Step 4 can be repeated several times, but the heating will be less and less each time. When it no longer heats up, leave it undisturbed to continue composting.
NB If you have a bad back you can compost in smaller containers. The smallest container our teacher knew of anyone composting in was the one in the picture below and he said she got results in just six weeks by tossing the compost regularly.

Cool heap
1. Collect enough compost materials to make a layer at least 30 cm high in the compost bin. Add green materials then mix in some straw, woody prunings and/or scrunched up cardboard to help create air spaces in the heap. It might help if you start the heap with a few woody plant stems or small twigs at the bottom, as this will help improve circulation and drainage.
2. Continue to fill the container when you have compostable material. Make sure you put both greens and browns in.
3. When the container is full (which it may never be, as the contents will sink as they compost) or when you decide you've added enough just leave it to finish composting (which could take up to a year) or go to step 4.
4. Remove the top layers of the heap. If the lower layers have composted use these on the garden. Mix everything else together thoroughly. Add water if it's dry or dry material (browns) if it's soggy. Replace in the bin and leave to mature.

Hybrid heap
1. Fill your heap as you create waste (like for the cool method).
2. Turn it when you have time (this will help it heat up).
You can turn it as much or as little as you want, but the more you turn it the quicker the compost will be ready.

How to balance brown and green materials whichever method you're using:
1. Add both greens and browns.
2. If the heap gets soggy and smelly add more browns.
3. If the heap gets dry, add more greens.

When is your compost ready?
When it turns dark brown and smells earthy. This can take as little as six weeks if you're using the hot heap method and put a lot of effort in, but is pretty likely to take over a year.

Heritage seeds

I went to Wisley again today.

They were having a taste of autumn festival selling foods and seeds. One of the stalls was full of heritage and heirloom seeds. That's seeds that were grown generations ago, often in Victorian times or even earlier. Some are rarely grown any more and others are still popular. Often the ones that aren't grown any more are ones that don't meet supermarket requirements in some way (e.g. they damage easily in transport) rather than that there's something wrong with them as a plant for your garden. I like the idea of growing something a bit unusual that I can't buy in the shops (or at least not as easily), so I bought a load:

When to harvest stuff

This week (the final week of my gardening course) we learnt when various vegetables are ready to harvest. Sweetcorn is ready to harvest when the tufts on the end go brown like this:

If the corns inside aren't large and juicy like you were hoping, it might have crossed itself with an inappropriate type of sweetcorn (it's wind pollinated) or there might simply be an issue with your growing conditions, e.g. the weather. You should pick sweetcorn as shortly before cooking as humanly possible.
The cauliflower below is ready to harvest. The fact it's tiny and doesn't look like a cauliflower in the shops is because I failed to put any fertiliser on it and cauliflowers are a veg that particularly needs fertiliser (a fact I learnt too late for this year's crop). A key reason for this is because you eat the flower part. To encourage a good, healthy flower head it needs potassium, but it also needs nitrogen and phosphorous as well. I also found a website that says it needs boron and magnesium too. The key point is, that much as it would be nice if it looked a lot nicer, this cauliflower is ready to harvest and eat and leaving it any longer isn't going to improve matters. That will take fertiliser when I grow them next year.

On the other hand it's too late for the cauliflower below, which not only has its own snail, it's gone beyond the point where it will taste OK - despite being even smaller than the one above.

The rather gorgeous plants below are Swiss chard (grown at the allotments, not by me):

Our gardening teacher said they taste just like spinach (irrespective of colour), but are easier to grow. You harvest these (and also lettuce) on a cut-and-come-again basis - taking outside leaves when you need them and leaving the growing shoots on the inside to keep growing. It's fine to take a whole plant if you want one though, especially after you've cut and come again a couple of times, as eventually they'll bolt (grow tall and grow flowers) and they won't taste good after that.

Runner beans ready to harvest

With beans, you just pick them when they're ready (i.e. when they look like what you'd buy in the shops). If you leave them on the plant, they will start to dry out. When they're dry you can either use them as seeds for next year's beans or as dried beans.

Hard as it is to tell, the plant above was a potato plant. You either wait until it's died off completely like this or at least until the leaves of the plant have gone yellow before you harvest potatoes. Then you just dig them up with a fork - a bit like you're digging the ground, but when you spot a potato, you just pick it out and add it to your pile.

Upcycled greenhouse

The Carshalton Community Allotment has a cool upcycled greenhouse:

Our teacher on the gardening course said that if he made it again, he'd only use clear bottles, as the green bottles stop some of the heat of the sun getting through. He also said that it took ages to collect all the bottles.

Cupboard stew

This is the rest of my carrots, my largest swede, my largest cauliflower (that I ultimately decided was too odd-looking to risk in my stew) and the cabbage leaves from my patch doing the least convincing impression of a lace doily.

Cabbage doing an impression of a doily

After I'd cut off all the slug damage (I promised my other half I'd cut the parts the slugs had nibbled off the cabbage, although, I actually can't see the harm of eating it), I only had 225 grams of veg left for my stew.

That's less veg than you get in a single can. So I had to add pretty much anything I could find in my cupboards to bulk it out. This one therefore also included tomatoes, butter beans and peppers from the freezer.

After seeing how the slugs and snails were using using my anti-butterfly netting to launch themselves on my brassicas from above

I thought it was time to remove the netting.

And already I have a caterpillar.

Didn't see any eggs though, and just the one on its own. I'm not putting the netting back now. I have, though, half mentally written off the rest of the veg (some small hope remains that I may get one or two more portions of cabbage or cauliflower, but it's only small).

How to make comfrey fertiliser

Comfrey fertiliser's great. Comfrey has really long roots, so it unlocks nutrients from deep in the soil. Turn it into fertiliser to let your other plants benefit from those nutrients too. The liquid can be used as a general plant food, but is particularly good for tomatoes. Here's how.

1. Find some comfrey. It looks like this:

Comfrey

2. Fill a plastic milk bottle with comfrey leaves (use a stick to poke them down to the bottom so you can fit as many in as possible).

3. Fill up with water and seal the lid.
4. Leave for 3 to 5 weeks.
5. Dilute 1 part fertiliser to 20 parts water for use.