Hillingdon Allotment News 14: Beneath the surface

Over the years I have seen many people come and go on allotments, they come with great expectations and go away disillusioned, wondering why they haven’t been able to reproduce on their plot all the beautiful disease free vegetables that they have seen in pictures in gardening magazines and on the television, and indeed, on other peoples plots. This saddens me because time after time in the headlong rush to reproduce those elusive vegetables, they have not bothered to carry out the basics, which leads over time, to success. So often many new allotment holders, once they have cleared the weeds and debris, plant crops straight away in the hope of growing these wonderful vegetables that they aspire to. Sometimes they are lucky, mostly not, but instead of pausing and listening to advice, press on the following year with ever diminishing results. I have seen this happen to a plot three years in succession without any manure or fertilizer being added, and when the soil was exhausted and yielded no more, the tenant gave up with some feeble excuse.

Remember, in the plant world, the fancy bits on top rely on the bits you don’t see underground, it’s similar to the swan swimming effortlessly along the water, but paddling like hell underneath. All good gardeners will tell you to think six months in advance and the autumn is the time to start preparing that ground for next years crops. On a new plot, you should start with a clean sheet and assume nothing. On both light and heavy soils cultivation is the first criteria together with the addition of organic material which will, in the case of clay soils, help to beak it up and for light soils, helps to combine the particles.

Soil should be dug to the depth of the spade (known as a spit), and turned over, don’t be too fussy about breaking up any lumps as this will happen during the winter weather. This digging does various things including increasing the amount of soil surface available to the weathering process, encourages drainage and exposing pests to birds and animals. At this stage I would strongly advise the addition of compost, manure or anything organic, which can be spread over the surface. The manure etc, need not be too well rotted, anything coarse will do as this organic matter will become incorporated into the soil over the winter period and help in several ways to improve the soil for cultivation. If you are unable to obtain sufficient manure to do the whole of the plot, then manuring one part well is preferable to doing the whole poorly. As well as this, on heavy soil, I would advocate, over a period of years, the addition of some coarse sand which will further act in soil improvement, and which unlike manuring, needs only to be done once. A cubic metre of sand will cover 13 square meters of plot at 75mm (3”) deep and makes a vast difference to the soil texture.

Organic matter plays a major chemical role in the soil by retaining nutrients used by plants, so organic rich soils can hold large amounts of nutrients making them readily available to plants, while humus, which is the produce of organic material breakdown, acts as cement between particles of clay, silt and sand, binding them together and allowing for easier root growth and penetration, and seedling emergence.

Hard work, of course it is, however if done properly, and in stages, it’s worth it. So remember next summer to show off those decent vegetables that you have grown, and when asked how you did it, you can use that well worn phrase ‘the answer lies in the soil’.

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