Kitchen Garden Forum

Unless it's an incredibly dry spell I never water garlics. The roots go pretty deep in search and a dought it'll be dry at a depth of 6 inches given the weather over the last month.

Broad beans went in the ground straight out of the pack and I didn't water in. All have germinated - 3 varieties. I'll water when we haven't had rain for a while and definitely when the flowers and fruit are appearing.

We have to pump the water from a stand pipe at our allotment so I water only when needed (or when my husbands there to help).

Pawty

Hopefully your memory won't need this reminder Geoff, I stopped sowing garlic in Autumn on the basis the plant that had grown during the warmer weather then sat in wet/cold ground for up to four months. This year and last year I sowed in early April and put those tunnels I made over them, the sprouted very quickly and caught up so I was able to pull them at about the same time but with less rot. I have lost four garlic sprouts that have just withered and died since I moved the tunnels but we haven't had frost.

Looking back on my four year apprenticeship it's been my eagerness to get-going, overwatering, overcrowding and perhaps over feeding that has caused losses and non starters.

The comfrey tea I make from my plantation gets stronger and stronger during the season and the only measure I have of its potency is the colour when I dip the watering can into the barrels. It's been a fabulous resourse of cheap nutrients but a very unsatisfactory way of administering it.

Our garlic, planted last October, looks enormous for this time of the year, so I gave it a slight scattering of onion fertiliser today. The shallots and overwintering onions, planted at the same time, are quite tiny in comparison.
I am still using last year's shallots (Jermor and Matador) and they are still really solid and not sprouting.

Hi Richard,
Depending on how much Comfrey you are growing the neatest and cleanest way of using Comfrey is to make it into a concentrate.
Making a concentrate does away with the awful odour from Comfrey tea and the concentrate is very easy to administer.
It also gives you a modicum of control as to how much you use. The concentrate is diluted 1 part concentrate to 9 parts water.
I have been using Comfrey since the early 1950's
JB.

I've been thinking along those lines JB, making a concentrate would be more convenient in at least two ways. The smell doesn't bother me because the barrels are far enough away though I have to walk a distance with a watering can full of tea.

What method do you use, an old dustbin perhaps ?

I do both Johnboy and the concentrate method is much less smelly. I've attached the top half of a large plasting pop bottle (with the lid on) to a 4 ft piece of pipe, drilled holes for a handle at the top and hang it up over a small bucket. I stuff the pipe with chopped up comfrey leaves and keep topping it up as they sink down. I've got a smaller diameter pop bottle of water with a string on that fits in the pipe to squash it down . Then you can undo the screw cap at the bottom and collect the concentrated liquid in the bucket and dilute it to use.

I'm holding back on sowing and planting outside until this cold spell has passed and never plant anything tender like french or runner beans or tomatoes out until the end of May at the earliest.

If you can't wait to put the climbing french beans out you could put the canes in vertically in a circle (which I do anyway) instead of bunching them up in a wigwam. Then it is very easy to wrap plenty of fleece round them held on with a few big clothes pegs until the weather improves. This keeps both the wind and the frost off. I grow groups of ten plants of each variety two to a cane so it saves space too.

Presumable it's a length of four inch soil pipe with an end-cap ?

I get quite a large comfrey harvest so maybe I should dry half then use that as a mulch and squash the other half into Drain pipe for liquid nutrient.

The only really good French beans I grew was a second sowing after a much too early sowing that failed. Yes, end of May/early June is good because our autumns seem to be late summers and early winter is the new Autumn.

Yes 4 inch or 10cm soil pipe. I wilt the comfrey before putting it in the pipe and it reduces very quickly so you have room to keep adding more. Mine's on a hook on the hut next to the greenhouse so it is very handy.

I've had a sowing session in the greenhouse this week. The sweetcorn I sowed on the 20th came up in three days. It said to not let the temperature drop below 18c so it has been at 20c in the propagator. I've put the beans in it too today hoping for fast germination then harden them off in the unheated part and cold frame ready for the garden at the end of May.

I've put back sowing peas, Swiss chard,spinach and beetroot for a few days as the weather forecast is for a heavy snowfall tomorrow tea time. I hope it is wrong.

PLUMPUDDING wrote:Yes 4 inch or 10cm soil pipe. I wilt the comfrey before putting it in the pipe and it reduces very quickly

That's a very good idea, do you always use the same dilution rate ? 9 to 1 I think it was, regardless of what you're using it on ?

I'm trying get my head around a small tap just above the stop-end. If I drill the correct size hole I should be able to screw something of half-inch BSP into it so it self-threads then apply a little adhesive or joint-compound then fit a cheap 15mm ball tap. Otherwise just releasing the rotted fluid by loosening the stop-end could be messy.

I like tidy.

The tap sounds good but is beyond my DIY capabilities so I wear rubber gloves when I unscrew the bottle cap.

I use an approximate dilution going on the colour, but it was about 9 water to one comfrey liquid when I did an accurate measure.

A second option may be within your capabilities if you ever get tired of the rubber gloves routine, when I get to complete a more simple method ill post a photo for you after a successful test, my idea is to fit a proper push on end cap (About £3.50) then drill the correct size hole so the tapered end of Biro type writing instrument will bung the hole. When you want to drain just pull the Biro out.

I suppose it would be useful to know how much liquid is likely to build up in a five foot length of pipe. So I can test the bung first.

NOTE
I am not known to be a Heath Robinson type. (Smile)

You drilled holes ? I have a friend who is a doctor of something, not medical, I had to teach him how to use a drill, hold a hammer correctly, use a saw correctly and a number of other things. A clever bloke but inept at anything practical.

I've taken a photo don't know whether it will post or not it might appear several times as I've been having problems

Sorry, you'll have to turn it round.