50 potatoes!This year the beginning of my crops in place, like the previous 2, was the potato!
Planted mid April, they begin to show their heads under the hay from the 9 May, surprise, on the teenager that I put in place this winter. It was a billon (the land of the alley had been placed on the plot to raise it). This year, I have regularly landed on this slanted (loosely) east-west, which creates an oblique slope where the plants are better exposed to the sun. It's crazy as a small modification of the relief plays .
- the teen is the long strip in the center (right)
In the photo, we can logically distinguish the first planes that emerge at mid slope, while on the second line above, but at the top, the heads have not yet appeared!
These 2 long strips on the right are the first that we opened with friends, at the beginning of this vegetable garden. I did not know anything about culture, the memories of the vegetable garden were summed up in the redcurrant chores of my childhood, the land was unknown and it was necessary to take the plunge! I did have a grimoire, but that's another matter to do! Precisely the book labeled organic as it should be explained - I reread it just now, I can not resist quoting you a passage - how to "work the soil well" thanks to digging:
- the traditional digging: admire the pirouette that turns everything upside down
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"We must not work a soil that is too dry or too wet. We recognize the right moment for the fact that a clod of earth caught between the fingers is crumbly and does not stick. (...) This is the first step in soil preparation, which requires the most energy (not essential in very light soils) The purposes of digging are: loosening the soil in depth (up to approximately 30 cm), (...) , destruction of weeds (they are uprooted, then removed and buried). "Notice already this absurdity of the reasoning: one must work the ground only when it is brittle and this in order to loosen it up !!
Those who have worked in the earth actually understand what it is: a clod of earth is "crumbly" when you can take it in your hand, it holds, but on pressing it easily crumbles and becomes airy ("loose ").
But here we see that the guide, as often is content to prescribe without explanations a reasonable minimum. Let's try not to fall in this way ... How do you explain this phenomenon: the friable earth is held by the glus made by the soil organisms? thanks to the clay-humic complex? thanks to the adequate hydrometry of the earth? On the other hand, why would a vegetable not cross as easily a crumbly earth as a loose earth? Finally, we know that good aeration of a soil benefits bacteria and microorganisms that need air to break down organic matter. Hence the implicit idea of airing the soil to the maximum ... with burying the canopy in this airy area.
All I did was confuse you finally
...
wait, wait, see, return to our potato 50 and before to the story of this flower bed.
So we happily made on this first flowerbed a kind of traditional double digging with turning over the clods and burying the plant cover, a heresy! Well the book said:
"
Very tiring, it is also not always satisfactory on the biological level. It will only be used if it is necessary to quickly bury the vegetation in place, (...)"
For the first 2 elements I confirm: in the clay soil, to make a band of 5m, it is enough to tear for the remainder of the week! The soil, put upside down, was so badly handled that this plot is the one that posed the most problems thereafter (raised weeds, bindweed, compaction, soil poverty ...) Despite the use of a kind of spring loaded neo-spade (
I'll show you the gear later), for the other flowerbeds we did otherwise (subsequently, I'll buy a grelinette soon, I use less and less).
Here are the potato plants today:
- the same teen
In short it's not bad party for potatoes and without digging!
- the hay was partly replenished with bean remnants (provided by neighbors)
smile
grelinette, buried potatoes 5cm, thick mulch of hay + various:
