Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: elliottk on April 02, 2012, 15:47
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Hello all,
Last November, I put some manure on the allotment plot and I have forked it over in February. The plot is very lumpy and as I am about to start planting as much as I can does it really cause any plants a problem the soil that lumpy?
Some people use a petrol rotavater but as I don't have one and they are expensive to hire i'm wondering if it is just ok to start planting.
I believe potatoes are ok in lumpy soil.
We have been digging lots but some areas still look lumpy.
Are there any plants really against lumpy soil?
Thanks,
Kevin
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When you were forking over did you break the lumps with the back of the fork, you can usually smash most of them up this way, and then rake over till fairly smooth.
The potatoes will be ok but you need a finer tilth to sow seeds direct.
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Potatoes are fine but for the other veg just give it a light forking or hoeing and bash the the clods down..
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There's a bit of an echo in here!
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You can sow your seeds in compost, then when they are established transplant them into your lumpy soil.
Or you can just put some multipurpose compost in a trench where you want to sow your seeds and sow in that.
As the years go by, the more organic matter you add and the more you work the soil the lumps will break up.
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There's a bit of an echo in here!
I had the page open for a while before I replied so replied at the same sort of time!!
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I THINK this is they way it goes (someone correct me if im wrong) when you dig most soil will be lumpy, unless you have added heaps of manure over the years, and as you do its gets better and better each year, the reason for the lumps as you dug last year, you would have got rain and the water will then seep in to the clumps, the frost then comes along and freezes the water (making it expand) and it will break the clumps in to a finer soil or even smaller clumps, we had hardly any rain followed by frost, so big lumps of dirt, and if im wrong, it sounds plausible anyway!!! :tongue2:
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Spot on Dopey113 ... ;)
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if its lump then give it a good whack with the back of the fork, quickly move on to next dig, at the end just rake the surface flat. it would be ideal to get a rotivator if you haven't done so already, generously sprinkle some sharp sand,manure on top, and rotivate it. over time you will notice soil lumps will break up nicely with a gentle squeeze.
i found most things grow in lumpy soil. i st had lumpy clay soil so potato's and carrots struggled but others were ok.
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Plenty of useful advice which I am not echoing :lol:
Just wanted to say that our plot was thick clay that you could have made bricks out of, plus masses of huge stones
Often inside the lumps was a stone, collecting the soil about itself somehow, so be careful when you whack those lumps.
I chop them with the side of the spade to avoid that wrist vibrating clang :ohmy:
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be careful when you whack those lumps.
I chop them with the side of the spade to avoid that wrist vibrating clang :ohmy:
I've broken the tine off one of my forks :( so I "stab" with the prongs rather than whack now. When I rake over a bed, it helps to mix any compost/sand with the lumps and any big lumps that come to the surface get whacked teeth down with the rake.
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Don't feel sad about not having a rotovator, If you think about it, the spinning tines of a rotovator go to the same depth each cycle and this leaves the soil at the bottom of the 'spin cycle' flat and hard. This is called a hard pan and roots have great difficulty getting through this and the surface of the 'frothy' soil is likely to settle to a flat hard layer come the rains.
Get fit and dig, or is that dig and get fit? :lol: Hoe, Hoe, Hoe. Cheers, Tony.
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be careful when you whack those lumps.
I chop them with the side of the spade to avoid that wrist vibrating clang :ohmy:
I've broken the tine off one of my forks :( so I "stab" with the prongs rather than whack now. When I rake over a bed, it helps to mix any compost/sand with the lumps and any big lumps that come to the surface get whacked teeth down with the rake.
Another reason for owing an enxada/azada/chillingham hoe - the reverse side is really good for delivering a clod-destroying 'thwack' to a big lump of soil.
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Thousands of acres are hoed each year with those azada hoes in Zimbabwe... and the rest of Africa.. The African name is "Badza" and every farm labourer is issued with one... They are the best hoe there is!!