Helpful Hands

Mum and Auntie Jill came over to the allotment last weekend and provided not only cheap labour, but also an amazing fount of knowledge on all things green. I'll try to jot down what they said just so I can remember their sage advice;

"What are you doing with that watering can?!"
 Water properly, don't use the rose to water all the soil around where your plants are - get close and direct the water at the plants.

"Water that poor pear!" 
Mulch trees and shrubs; not only does it keep weeds down, but if you build it up into a little dam around it (think of a volcano crater) then it holds moisture and directs it at the roots.

"Don't water every day, give them a good drenching once a week" 
OK, I knew this one already, but I hadn't appreciated what 'drenching'  really was! The pear wasn't drenched until it had almost two watering cans full. Apparently, watering once a week encourages the roots to go hunting nice and deep for water. This is good, as cant really get up there every day.

"If you get interesting looking weeds, keep them!"
I cant believe we haven't done this before. After a spot of weeding mum found what turned out to be fennel. Brilliant.Sure they're not in the right place for our crop rotation, but who cares! Jill says "stick a pole in so you know where they are and make sure you water them".
I instantly thought that this would maybe make a great companion plant but after a bit of hunting online, found that; "Fennel is an odd plant in that it pretty much is a poor companion for everything."
Haha. But it does say that it repels aphids, so that's good for where it is, right on the peas and beans patch :) 



"What are all these dandelions doing here?!?!"  [needs to be said with outrage as if someone has trampled over your prize blueberry bush] If you cant be bothered to dig them up, just pick off the flower heads. I was lazy, so just grabbed the flowers off, managed to get over 100.. dandelion tea perhaps?

"Your compost is rubbish, but you'll learn!"
To me it looked tons better than it did two weeks ago, but wasn't really going anywhere - no heat and quite broken down. so we decided that should start a new one and put the rest out on the plot. Top tips for compost success are layers of twigs and green and adding "recycled beer" and chicken poo. There was also much loling at the beetroot growing in the compost - if you chop them up, they don't keep growing. Who'd have thought? Also, roots the length of your arm are not a good idea either.

"We've had two loads of rhubarb already this year" 
Force your rhubarb and you'll get a super early crop




Plus they did LOADS of weeding :) cheers guys!


More photos on flickr