…for the beans and onions. On the way into the allotment on Sunday, I noticed the alpine strawberries had flowers out, so checked the summer-fruiting ones. Removed the mulch and weeded the bed, and found that all 10 plants are still going (some more than others). Mulched around them with chopped up comfrey and grass. The plot’s looking neater.
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.
OTOH there’s some good stuff:
It’s so wet … Was ordered down to the allotment on Sunday, but spent most of the time (1.5 hours) sheltering from the rain. A neighbour called me over for a cup of tea, which was very welcome, and I got to spend 15 minutes in her luxurious shed. It’s got a wee propane stove and a radio in it, carpet on the floor and the roof doesn’t leak.
Went to the communal leafmould bins. Saughton Mains allotment site has three big bunkers made from breeze blocks, perhaps 10m by 10m each, where the Allotments Officer arranges for council workers to drop plant remains. All the leaves from West Edinburgh parks are dumped here and turn into lovely leafmould. Now, not all of this is used so it collects at the back of the bunkers and various plants start to colonise it. And yesterday I noticed piles of grass cuttings in two of the bunkers and woodchippings in the third.
After all the rain, the leafmould and grass clippings have developed stagnant pools and the organic matter squelches ominously underfoot; it’s difficult to keep one’s feet. And since the leaves are collected from public parks, there’s all sorts of detritus: branches of various sizes, crisp wrappers and plastic drinks bottles, and even a discarded shoe. Reminds me of the trash compactor in Star Wars …
Monday: got another barrowful of leafmould. Three of them fills the area between the fence and rhubarb, so now I’ve got a 10′ x 3′ bed that I can plant next year. It’s very shaded (although I could change the fence form old pallets and boards to something that would let more light in, but that won’t change the fortifications net door). I could either put in something productive or use it as a living screen and tear down the crappy pallet fence.
Didn’t spend more than half an hour at the allotment as the rain was too bad.
Courgette flowers just starting to unfurl; blackcurrants still bitter
