Small Plot? No Problem!

I've decided to try gardening by the moon this year. I'm not going to bother with all the extraneous astrological stuff that biodynamic gardeners indulge in because

a) I can't necessarily sow and plant at a particular hour of a particular day (some of us have full-time jobs, yanno!), and

b) I don't believe in astrology anyway :)

What I do believe, nay, know, is that the moon's gravitational forces influence the behaviour of a wide range of animals - not including werewolves! - so why not plants, too? So I've put together some simple guidelines based on the moon's four main phases.

The plan goes like this:

New moon - 1st quarter: leaves and shoots (e.g. lettuce, cabbage, asparagus, rhubarb)

1st quarter - Full moon: flowers and fruits (e.g. beans, tomatoes)

Full moon - 3rd quarter: roots and tubers (e.g. carrots, potatoes, garlic)

3rd quarter - New moon: digging and other non-planting tasks

Interestingly, it's traditional to plant your potatoes on Good Friday which, because of the way Easter is calculated, is always a few days after the full moon - the ideal time for root vegetables, according to this scheme!

One advantage of dividing the jobs up like this, especially in spring, is that it feels less overwhelming. Not planted beans yet? No need to fret, it's not a fruit week, so just get on with the digging and be patient :)

I shall keep a note of the moon phase on my gardening entries and in my diary, and see how things turn out...

Moon phase: Week 3 (waning)

Thanks to a wet June and some serious neglect, the young plants that I was raising for the allotment have mostly died, much as they did last year. However there's an easy solution if you're prepared to spend a bit of money - plug plants!

I've found a supplier on ebay who is substantially cheaper than the big-name seed merchants, so I'm going to give him a try. He's got leeks and a range of brassicas, which should fill the main gaps in my winter plan - if his plants are good, I'll post a link.

I was chatting on the phone to Richard last night (he's in Scotland on business), and he suggested we try potatoes in barrels next year, to avoid the possible blight problems at the allotments. I'm game, since it gives me more allotment space for other crops, but it means totally rethinking my rotation plan - again!

I'll just have to make sure he knows that watering them is his job, since it was his idea ;)

When you only have a small area to work with, it's really good to keep it in production year-round. And with a bit of cunning, you can easily have two crops a year from most of your beds! (Well, that is the ideal anyway - I'm still learning, and some of my crops do fail. But trial and error is what it's all about.)

I like to grow small quantities of a wide variety of veg, since there are only two of us to feed, so I currently have eight 1.2m x 3.5m beds on my little allotment, on a four-year rotation (2 beds in each rotation group). The four groups are: Onions & Roots, Brassicas & Beets, Legumes, and Three Sisters.

If you want to try it, or just find out more, click on the "Continue reading" link for all the gory details (including a spreadsheet to print out or adapt to your own needs)!

Moon phase: Week 1 (waxing)

Onions are one of those vegetable groups that proponents of moon growing seem a little uncertain over - are they "root" vegetables and therefore should be sown/planted after the full moon? Does it make a difference if you are using seed (which needs to make leaf growth initially) or sets (which are already bulbed up)? So, as an experiment this year, I'm going to be trying sowing onion seed in different phases, to see if it makes a difference. Obviously this isn't going to be wholly scientific, since I don't have the time or equipment to ensure that other factors like temperature and humidity are constant, but it'll be fun anyway!

Inspired by recent posts on the Grapevine, I've decided to post a list of everything I plan on growing this year. As it's going to be a long list, I've putting it under "Continue reading" rather than turning this into the Never-ending Entry...

A couple of people have commented on my growing list for 2009 that I seem to have an awful lot of seed for such a small plot! My answer to that is two-fold:

1. In many cases I don't have a full packet of seed of that variety - and even when I do, I'm usually not going to sow it all this year. Seed-saving and seed-swapping are wonderful things!

2. I'm aiming to have as much of my plot in production all year round as possible, and that does require a wider range of veg.

It's a cliché of veg growing in general, and allotmenteering in particular, that in summer you end up a glut of courgettes/runner beans/beetroot/etc and have to give it away by the carrier-bag full. That's fine if you have a big plot - but I don't. Instead I grow small amounts of everything, and I use the appropriate variety for the season so that I get at least some veg all year round. It takes more planning and a bit more investment to get started, but I think it's worth it!

Today I decided to sow some parsnips; Madeline decided to supervise, though obviously I was not doing it right, judging by her haughty expression!

First I collected twenty of the loo-roll tubes I had saved over winter, and I decided to microwave them (to sterilise them) as per a suggestion I had seen online. Unfortunately no timings were suggested, so I set the microwave to 2 minutes. Bad move! Within the first minute, evil-smelling smoke started pouring out of the microwave! Luckily none of them caught fire, but I won't be doing that again!

I found that I could fit the twenty tubes into a seed tray with room to spare, so I added another eight untreated ones, filled them all with compost and - thinking that parsnips, being related to parsley, might respond similarly - watered them with boiling water. Now I just have to wait...