Update

That’s the second Sunday in a row I’ve been down to the allotment. Yes, I know that isn’t a lot :( Once again I’ve been in trouble with the Allotment Officer, and he’s trying to get me to move to a half plot. But I’ve put a lot of effort into the current plot and planted winter onions, so I’m damned if I’m going to move…

With the clocks going back, the daughter was awake at a ridiculously early time so I got down the allotment not long after 9am GMT. The low Autumn sun doesn’t burn the dew off very quickly, and the plot was looking quite blasted. A couple of hours of tidying up made me feel better, though. Added lots of material to the new compost bin: nettles from the path to the North of the plot; comfrey from around the blackcurrants; and a few stray raspberry canes.

Last year’s leafmould supply has now run out, so three of my beds don’t have a mulch on. There may be some cardboard under the stairs, but that might make the plot unsightly. It might also act as a slug hideout, like the mulch around the courgettes.

Seaweed

Can’t recall why I started getting interested in seaweed as a green manure, although it came up in conversation on Monday night. One of my colleagues was talking about taking a cycle ride along the seafront from Edinburgh out to Seaton Sands, which opens up the possibility for doing a run out to collect a trailerful of the stuff.

Seaweeds and their uses, Chapman and Chapman. CEC Central Lending Library, shelfmark QK567. Technical book; reporting and links to research; graphs and tables; relatively old.

Mostly brown algae, wracks and oarweed has been used as manure. Driftweed or cut rockweed. It’s mainly used close to the coast as seaweed is approx. 90 percent water. High potash content (K) so good for plants that require high K: roots and fruit, esp. blackcurrants. Low in phosphate so must add it if seaweed used exclusively for long time.

	N	Phosphoric acid	K	Salt
wet weed	11	2	27	35
manure	11	6	15	-

Advantage of being free from weeds and fungi.

Seasonal variation: research shows higher content of minerals around March; lowest around October.

So … it’s actually seaweed as a brown manure. Quite different from getting well-rotted manure from Gorgie City Farm at £2 per bag. Telephone 0131 337 4202.

Organic Gardening; Plant life of Edinburgh and the Lothians; A Scot’s Herbal; Joy Larkom: all these references seem to indicate that seaweed is full of trace elements and so is useful for poor soil but doesn’t make much difference on good soil.

The self-sustaining garden (a guide to matrix planting), Peter Thompson

Another book borrowed from Edinburgh’s Central Lending Library, shelfmark SB473 (or AH4 in the new system).

An intriguing book. Written from a gardening point of view with reference to plants and their visual and aesthetic structure, it makes the argument that one should minimise inputs, intervene in the landscape minimally, choose plants that complement each other and the microclimate they inhabit. It’s all reminiscent of permaculture, yet there’s not one reference to permaculture or any of the permaculture big names in the acknowledgements. There’s no references to productive plants, either, so it’s not one for my bookshelf.

Encourage the plants you want; discourage the plants you do not want.

Can’t say fairer than that: it’s not saying eradicate plants that don’t fit! He then ranks plants into 9 categories, from the most vigorous through site-appropriate to inappropriate:

1. out-and-out weeds with vigorous powers of regeneration (bramble, stinging nettle)
2. plants that are out of place and pose a threat to the planting scheme (dandelion, ground elder, rosebay willowherb, blackthorn, ash)
3. Weedy but not threateningly invasive; better out than in
4. Plants with attractive qualities but an inclination to take over
5. Long-lived tenacious plants, appropriate to the site and largely self-maintaining
6. Plants appropriate to the situation but unlikely to survive entirely unaided
7. Plants whose survival depends on intermittently repeated regular attention
8. Plants dependent on regular attention over indefinite periods for survival
9. Plants unable to exist without frequently repeated, time-consuming attention

Nice chapter on soil and indicator plants. Lovely illustrations. Has case studies from halfway through the book and the last four chapters are dedicated to particular habitats: variations on grassy themes; garden pools and wetlands; the mixed border; the blessings of shade.