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CLUB ROOT. ONIONS. PEAS. SUMMER SPINACH.
Enlarge Tip 41 on page 122 of PEAS: after harvesting (pages 120-123), as follows
The unemployed 50cm width of the pea section could be taken up by catch-crop lettuces instead of the single row of onions that is suggested earlier. The wisdom of developing onions where air movement is restricted -- as it could be by maturing pea plants -- is a matter for debate. Onions can be vulnerable where the breezes that disperse pests and diseases are absent. Instead of onions or lettuce, summer spinach is an excellent catch crop when sown with early peas. It thrives upon the pea plants' nitrogen secretions. Place a single, thinly-sown row (using a seed dispenser) between two rows of the pea, sowing when the early peas are sown. Insert marker sticks at the individual row's two ends and link them with garden line to be warned where not to apply the hoe when the hoeing programme that RJH urges upon all gardeners is carried out.
Clubroot risk is not a consideration when the spinach plant is denuded leaf by leaf (so that the kitchen may receive only what it needs, day by day), for spinach is a brassica which can be permitted to fall outside of the anti-clubroot regime that is discussed fully in the manual. Other brassicas are the brussel sprout, with its button swathed stem, the sprouting broccoli, with it multiple heads, and the kale, which also reproduces its body parts as these are removed (providing welcome Winter-time green leaves for the kitchen). Of course, in each case, stem and roots are removed entirely from the ground the instant that stripping is complete. Leaving denuded stumps still enrooted is to as good as to lay out a welcome mat to the ever-present, ever-waiting clubroot spoors.
The practice with cabbages and spring greens is strictly other than this, of course. As the manual points out in CABBAGES, pages 62 to 81, this is the brassica that must be left with its roots in the R J Harris's first-year, single-dug bed for as short a time as possible. Cabbage harvesting is not by the leaf. It is by the complete plant, plus the roots (which, once out of the ground, must be disposed of securely off site, not into any garden-sited compost heap or bin or trench, from which they and their clubroot-enticing qualities could be returned, accidentally, to the garden soil).
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SLUGS.
Extend the discussion that commences in CABBAGGES: seedlings and plantlets, pages 62-69, and continues throughout the book.
The anti-slug jar is advocated by R J Harris's Moon Gardening as an effective way to solve the small vegetable garden's slug problem -- although it is not, the head gardener stresses, his way.
"We are one hundred percent anti slug pellet at Tresillian," he says, "although I do keep in mind that the busy, pre-occupied, weekend gardeners have pressures upon them that we at Tresillian do not have, so we can do things that they are not able to do. For example, instead of pellets, we cut up orange peel and put it into the bottoms of the jars.
"It does not kill the pest, but they do seem to hang around for a long, so you have time to catch and dispose of them."
Wheat bran -- a bag of which can be bought in any health-food or whole-food store -- is at the centre of one of another of the head gardener's methods. Each vulnerable seedling or row of seedlings is encircled by it, and the encirclement is repaired as the weather and/or foraging creatures break or disturb it. The slugs and snails are attracted to it, feed upon it and, in consequence, have no room for what is growing nearby. Additionally, the consumed bran dries them, and they die of dehydration.
Sea sand is another RJH favourite. The creatures are reluctant to crawl over an encirclement of this material, and forgo the protected plant. This is not solely because of its abrasiveness. Being taken from nearby beaches, the sand is salt-laden. Potentially, salt is death to the black and shell-encased ones, which they know well.
"Sharp sand, as used by the builders, is not effective," the head gardener points out. "The slime that they produce makes a carpet over it, and once one has succeeded in getting across, the others follow suit, moving over the carpet. The same goes for broken up egg shells. They don't work, either."
Chimney soot created by coal fires is put down in the same way, but purely as a physical barrier. So is garden lime where the cabbage and pea families have to be protected, for, like sea sand, lime deters anything that leaves a mucus trail in its wake. Also, it is compatible with the brassica family.
Traps are effective, consisting simply of 40cm-square pieces of black plastic cut from dustbin liners and stretched out wherever there is a spare piece of ground. Lifted each morning, they expose the nocturnal creatures that have congregated beneath them overnight. "Gloves are the order of the day when collecting the things," advises the head gardener, "because as you collect them you must put them in a bucket containing water and a sprinkling of household salt. Once they are dead, you can add them to the compost heap, if you have one."
"We do not use this method," says Mr Harris, "but in the small garden, with a gardener with the time for the regular morning tour, it is not a bad idea."
Supremely, strictly-kept rules of garden and personal hygiene form Mr Harris's major weapon.
Daily inspection ensures that no scrap of decaying vegetable matter -- potentially, slug and snail food -- is anywhere in the kitchen garden at Tresillian. Complementing this, his hoe-dependent, hoeing-oriented way of bed/plant management incidentally turns all extraneous vegetable matter into the depths of the soil, preventing it from attracting the pests to where propagated vegetable plants are vulnerable. There is, too, Mr Harris's insistence upon the continual cultivation, or working, of the top soil, for the slugs and the snails abhor earth that is constantly turned.
"And regularly wash the hands," adds the head gardener, "especially after collecting the dead or trapped pests for disposal. Even when gloves are worn for this job.
"Prevention," sums up R J Harris, "is better than cure, and prevention is stopping the pests getting in to the plants to start with. Once they are in, the damage is as good as done."
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BLACKBIRDS.
Curiosity point: slug pellets kill wild life, or so it is said. This is not because the birds and the mammals binge upon the blue poison. They know better than to do that. It is, alleges the myth, because they devour the creatures that have done so. Can this be so, however, considering that so many bodies lie in full view of, and are ignored by, for example, the black birds and the thrushes that forage unendingly for food in the beds and the shrubberies? And, mentioning black birds, how many gardeners are aware that it is the birds that we have to thank for the proliferation of slugs and snails, and for the density of their populations. The pests lay their eggs in a gel which is designed to stick to birds' feet. The birds fly off to pastures new, taking fresh populations with them to wherever they land. Natural Collection of Bath must be thanked for this information (www.naturalcollection.com).
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BORAGE. SWEET PEAS.
Extend the discussion that accompanies the sweet-pea instruction given on this website (SWEET PEAS)
Is it possible to achieve similar results to comfrey stock with borage? The question is put by a new user of R J Harris's Moon Gardening. "I have lots of borage in my garden and the bees love it," she says. "It appears to be a similar plant, so I wondered if it would have the same effect as comfrey."
"No," responds Mr Harris. "Borage cannot supply the nutrients that comfrey supplies. What it does do terrifically is draw in not only the pollinators like the bees, as you point out, but also the hoverflies, which feed on the insect life that the garden is best without.
"I never fail to pop a borage plantlet or two into the bed alongside each of my new sweetpea rigs. The sweetpea is a pollinator attractant in its own right, which is partly why I always have it in the kitchen garden at Tresillian, but it too needs help in that department, and the borage plant's tiny blue flowers are just right for that."
NOTE: space restrictions dictated that the comfrey chapter of the 1st edition of R J Harris's Moon Gardening -- a comprehensive plant-propagation and plant-feed-production overview -- could not be included in the awaited (at 20/02/07) 2nd edition. Plans have been made to include it on this website.
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