High hopes for my blackcurrants

Lovely day down the allotment. Sunny and dry, and the first day this year ith birdsong. Pulled down the second old, old compost bin. Weeded under the blackcurrants, pulling up grass and moss and getting the ivy off the stools. Then put down approx. 1/2 of the manure around them as mulch.

Once you’ve got your eye in pruning blackcurrants, it’s not too difficult to see which branches to prune: first take off the diseased and broken ones; then cut back those which stop you getting into the bush. Most of the branches grow in the expected way — generally upwards — but a few of them go off at crazy angles: these are the ones to take off.

The way blackcurrants grow is so interesting. Branches that touch the ground, root, and then a new bush grows. I think there were only two bushes put in originally, but there’s about 7 distinct stools now I’ve cut back a few of these self-layers. It’s not as scary as cutting the umbilical cord that seperated my daughter from her mum, although I’m glad I’ve been studying the RBGE practical certificate in horticulture to know what’s happening. And I can recommend the Panton Street community midwives, too

The plot looks much better today than the first time I saw it, one year ago

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.