Time to get down-and-dirty in the garden

URBAN FARMER:Now is the time to prepare the ground for next year's crops, so find a source of manure and roll up your sleeves, writes FIONNUALA FALLON

MUCK, MULCH, mud and manure – it’s time to get down-and-dirty in the OPW’s walled kitchen garden, as gardeners Meeda Downey and Brian Quinn get to work preparing the garden for winter.

By now, they’ve harvested many of last summer’s crops and are slowly stripping back the vegetable beds, cutting away the spent foliage and removing any roots and weeds by hand.

“Although we’ve still got quite a few vegetable crops in the ground, we’ve been clearing the beds where we can of any finished crops (such as pumpkins, peas, beans, lettuce, celery and spinach), and then carefully weeding them before rotovating,” says Meeda.

“After that, it’s a case of either sowing a green manure, or mulching the ground with well-rotted farmyard manure (FYM). In the larger beds, where the pumpkins, sweet corn and potatoes grew earlier this summer, we’ve sown a mix of different green manures, including winter vetch, rye, and crimson clover. They’ll stay in the ground until next spring when we rotovate them in. But we’ve also mulched the smaller vegetable beds with a thick layer of farmyard manure, which will help fertility and protect the soil structure over the wintertime.”

Getting your hands on a reliable source of well-rotted, weed-free manure such as that being used in the walled garden is always a difficult task, but one that every urban farmer faces at some stage or another. Brian and Meeda are lucky enough to have a steady-ish supply of FYM, and this autumn they’ll be spreading about 20 tonnes of the stuff.

“We’d actually stored a pile left over from earlier this year but, when we went to use it, we discovered that it had become infested with Japanese knotweed,” says Meeda.

This thuggish and depressingly persistent weed ran riot in the walled kitchen garden for years before its restoration, and is still a problem in the smaller, adjacent slip garden, where the OPW gardeners store their manure. “We probably should have been more careful about how we stored it – putting a sheet of thick black plastic on the ground before we tipped it from the trailer, and then covering it, would have stopped the weeds from taking over,” says Meeda. “But we’ll know better the next time.”

Just like Meeda and Brian, all urban farmers need to ensure that their manure comes (and stays) weed-free, as few things are more frustrating than discovering that you’ve unwittingly introduced an invasive weed into the vegetable patch.

Watch out, in particular, for the brittle white roots of both hedge and field bindweed, two horribly pervasive and perennial weeds that are often found in mature gardens and that love to lurk, Trojan horse-like, in the manure heap of many farmyards and stables. They spread by stealth, rapidly colonising large areas with a network of white roots that tunnel deeply through the ground and are almost impossible to eradicate once established.

These plants can regenerate from the tiniest piece of root, which is how they often first arrive, unnoticed, into new gardens. Field bindweed also seeds itself prolifically, with the seeds remaining viable in the ground (or the manure) for several years.

The nettle is yet another common weed of the manure heap, and its yellowish roots can also be hard to remove once established, as are the sharp, wiry rhizomes of scutch, or couch grass as it’s also known.

Finally, one other baddy of the weed world that manure-hunters should beware of is the invasive ground elder, whose spaghetti-like, white rhizomes are often hidden in the dung heap.

The best manure, if you can lay your hands on it, is dark, damp and heavy, free of any such plant roots, weeds or seeds, and comes from well-rotted horse/cow dung mixed with urine-soaked straw bedding. Wood shavings and sawdust are okay, also, as long as they are very, very well-rotted. If the manure is very crumbly or powdery, and light in colour or weight, then it’s generally too old to be of much use.

In Dublin, I get very good FYM delivered by the sack from Liam Brannigan (086-3734519). It’s not cheap (€5 per sack) but I know that I can be absolutely sure of the quality. Stables are also sometimes happy to let you help yourself to their horse dung, as long as you bag/load it yourself.

If you do so, remember to take it from near the bottom of the pile where it will be well-rotted and free (hopefully) of any air-borne seeds. Don’t go to the very bottom, as it’s here that you’re most likely to find the wandering roots of nearby weeds.

In the OPW’s walled organic kitchen garden, Meeda and Brian will leave the manure as a mulch until next spring, when they’ll fork what’s left of it into the top layer of soil. In the meantime, the earthworms will do a very good job of it for them. Mulching in this way, and at this time of the year, is particularly good for lighter soils that may need to be protected from the leaching effects of winter storms and heavy rainfall. With heavier soils, however, it’s best to fork your manure into the top layer now, rather than in the springtime.

Along with mulching and manuring, the OPW gardeners have their hands full with plenty of other autumn chores, such as transplanting some of the fruit trees that presently grow along the back of the herbaceous border to their new position along the kitchen garden’s walls.

“We’re expecting a delivery of bare-root fruit trees any day now, and so we’ll be busy getting the ground ready for their arrival,” says Brian. “We’re also going to be dividing the herbaceous border in the next few weeks, another job that’s best done in autumn when the plants have died down and aren’t in active growth.”

And that’s not to mention the crops still left in the ground or waiting to be harvested, which includes cabbages, winter cauliflower, beetroot, turnip, Brussels sprouts and celeriac, amongst others.

“Would you believe that we’re still picking blackberries and raspberries and that, up to last week, we were still getting a bucketload of tomatoes every week. And that’s from the plants growing outdoors in the slip garden,” says Meeda.

Hmm, so much for things quieting down in autumn then.

Hardy Winter Peas

Although it’s November, urban farmers will be delighted to know that they can still sow seed outdoors of some vegetable crops, including those of the hardy pea. This will produce a welcome crop in late spring or very early summer (May/June), leaving the ground free for main summer cropping vegetables.

Alternatively, they can be planted under cover, in an unheated glasshouse or polytunnel. The two varieties to look out for are Feltham First and Meteor (available from Mr Middleton Garden Shop, 01-8603674), both of which are suitable for sowing either now or in early spring. The advantages of an autumn sowing are twofold. Firstly, the ground is still warm and so germination is more reliable and, secondly, the plants have more chance to establish a strong and healthy root system.

While Feltham First is an old favourite with gardeners, Meteor is now considered hardier and better-flavoured. This heavy-cropping variety will survive in even exposed (but not waterlogged) gardens although it helps to give the young seedlings either cloche-protection or a sunny, sheltered position where possible. Sow in flat-bottomed drills, or in circles, spacing the seeds just 2.5cm-5cm apart. Watch out for mice, which can quietly smuggle away the newly-sown seeds, and take precautions (traps are probably kindest). Once the young seedlings have emerged, protect them against slugs and marauding pigeons. Ferramol slug pellets are organically-approved, while black cotton thread stretched tautly between short stakes will deter birds.

Dwarf in habit, Meteor reaches a height of just 30cm-45cm but will need some form of support. You can either use netting or the sturdy twigs of deciduous trees such as beech or oak. Drive these firmly into the soil when the young seedlings are about 7.5cm tall, carefully criss-crossing them to give a densely branching support but taking care not to go too close to the roots. Watch out for weeds (mulching helps) and look forward in anticipation (yes, peas!) to a very tasty and very early harvest.

The OPW’s walled kitchen garden is in the grounds of the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre, beside the Phoenix Park Café and Ashtown Castle. The gardens are open daily from 10am to 4.30pm

Next week Urban Farmer in Property will cover planting a winter salad window box

Fionnuala Fallon is a garden designer and writer