Chapter 11
GENERAL MAINTENANCE
TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT
Although the racks of tools in the garden centres would suggest that you need a small warehouse just to store them, you don’t need much to get started as a gardener. Below is a list of the basic equipment you’ll need. This needn’t be prohibitively expensive – secondhand, but perfectly serviceable, tools can be found at boot fairs, or share with neighbours or other allotment-holders. As with many things, the more you spend the better quality your tools are likely to be, so the list also includes details of things to look for. If you can’t afford to splash out straight away, get cheaper versions and invest in better tools as you continue to garden. Reliable brands are Bulldog, Wolf and Felco (for secateurs and saws).
Essential tools
| • | A spade. Look for a strong join between the spade and the handle. Available in full or narrower border (sometimes called ladies!) widths - using the latter will take longer but be kinder on your back as you’re not lifting as much weight each time. |
| • | A hand fork. A comfortable handle is crucial - you may prefer the long- handled versions, which allow you to reach more easily, but the normal short handles give more control. |
| • | A trowel. As for hand forks. For planting out plugs and potted plants. |
| • | A pair of secateurs. Worth investing in a decent pair if you can – Felco are the best brand, and they offer servicing (for a fee). Bypass blades (where the blades work like a pair of scissors) are better than the anvil style (where one blade hits on to a flat surface). |
| • | A rake. For levelling the soil after digging, so go for strong tines not the springy wire ones used to rake up leaves. The width is up to you; a wide rake is better for levelling empty beds, but a narrow one can level the bed and be used to tidy up the soil after weeding between rows too. |
| • | A watering can. Get one with a capacity of around 10l – more and it’ll be too heavy, less and you have to do more trips to the tap. Make sure it has a rose attachment for the end of the spout. |
| • | Garden string. Soft green garden string is better than standard white string as it’s kinder on the plant stems. |
Useful but not essential tools
| • | A large or border fork. Useful for turning compost into the soil, breaking up clods of soil and digging up potatoes. Look for the same qualities as spades. |
| • | A wheelbarrow. Make sure you can pump up, or replace, the wheel easily. Builders’ barrows are often a better choice than garden barrows. |
| • | A hoe. For scraping off small annual weeds (which are left to dry and die). Quick weeding, but can disturb the plants’ roots and soil structure. |
| • | A pruning saw or loppers. For cutting larger branches such as hazel stems. |
Tool care
Keep your tools in good condition to prolong their life. Keep them clean to help prevent any plant diseases spreading. Use a brush to clean off mud (avoid washing them in water to prevent rusting), and oil your secateurs regularly. Sharpen blades with a file or a specialist sharpening tool/stone.
WATERING
Most plants will survive dry spells without additional watering, but are less likely to produce a decent crop. Leafy annual plants (lettuce, spinach, etc.) are more likely to bolt in dry conditions and fruiting plants may produce very small fruit/veg or nothing at all. It is therefore important that your plants always have an adequate supply of water, but water smart.
Check if the soil needs watering
It may be dry and crusty on the surface after a sunny day but still have plenty of moisture in the soil, or look wet after a shower but be dry as dust beneath. The best way to check is the most basic – stick your finger in it! The soil should be moist but not wet. Don’t worry about it unduly – plants can survive a lot before they wilt or drown beyond retrieval – you will get a feel for it the longer you garden.
Water efficiently
If you do need to water, do so efficiently. Give the beds a good thorough soaking in the early morning or evening, directing a gentle flow (to avoid soil erosion) to the soil beneath the plants, not over the leaves. Unless you are applying foliar feed or comfrey tea, splashing a bit of water over the top will do more harm than good. The water will only penetrate the topmost layer of soil, encouraging the roots to stay near the surface where they will dry out faster, and the humidity from the evaporation will encourage fungal diseases. Aim for ten litres per square metre, i.e. a large watering can for half a module.
Bottom line
FEEDING YOUR PLANTS
Well-prepared soil with plenty of organic matter and perhaps some controlled- release fertiliser will go a long way to providing the nutrients your plants need to grow and crop well, but you can give them extra help with more fertiliser/food. The main elements that may need a boost are nitrogen and potassium. Nitrogen is needed for green, leafy growth, potassium helps the plant produce fruit. Phosphorus (which helps root growth) is also usually included in fertilisers.
Beware over-feeding your plants. Too much fertiliser can become toxic, and too much nitrogen will promote lots of fresh, sappy growth, which is heaven for aphids and other pests. Follow the instructions on the packet for the correct dosage.
Buying fertilisers
Fertilisers are available that have more of one nutrient than the others, depending on what you are applying it to. For example, you would give lettuce more nitrogen and tomatoes more potassium. The ratio of nutrients is shown on the label of the product as the NPK content, where N is for nitrogen, P for phosphorus, and K for potassium (its official chemical name is kalium).
Most all-purpose vegetable fertilisers will suit all your modules, but for fruit and cut flowers, a high-potassium feed (generally sold as tomato feed) would be better. Liquid fertilisers will give faster results than granular, and are best applied to boost a plant as it starts to fruit.
The alternative is to make your own. Follow the instructions in Chapter 10 (p. 145) for making comfrey fertiliser. You can use nettles instead if you don’t have space for the module.
Bottom line
WEEDING: IDENTIFYING AND REMOVING WEEDS
Your garden, no matter how well you look after it, will get weeds. There is no escape. Seeds will be blown in on the wind, be dropped by birds or be brought to the surface by cultivation, having lain dormant for many years. Weeding can cause a crisis of confidence in the beginner gardener, with weeds being left to get too big because you’re not sure what they are, but removing them is so important.
Weeds are plants growing where you don’t want them to. Most are native wildflowers or have self-sown from plants you have deliberately put elsewhere. Some, such as nettles, sheep’s sorrel and dandelions, are edible. They play host to a diverse range of wildlife that can benefit your garden, but their potential damage outweighs their benefits.
Why weeding is important
The main reason for removing weeds is to remove the competition for your plants. Weeds are pioneers, the first to colonise bare soil and fast growing. They compete with your plants for water, nutrients and light, and can smother even established plants within a season. Just look at how big they can get in such a short time; all that water, light and nutrition could have been feeding your plants instead. Weeds also provide habitats for pests, especially slugs and snails that like somewhere shady and damp, and can be overwintering hosts for plant diseases.
How to remove weeds
So, weeds should be got rid of, but don’t panic. The size and layout of the modules in this book have been designed to make it easy. If you weed a couple of rows every time you go out to harvest, you should be able to keep on top of the weeds without having to put aside your weekend to ‘do the garden’. Labelling rows helps, and many seed packets now also have a picture of the plant as a seedling to help identify it.
If you never let the weeds get too big, then it should not be a problem to remove them simply by pulling them up by hand. However, if your weeds have got a bit out of hand (and it happens), it’s best to use a hand fork to get all the root out and to avoid disturbing the plants around them too much.
It is especially important to use a hand fork for larger perennial weeds. Perennial weeds use their roots to regenerate (even from the smallest fragment), so you must get all of the root out. It will be either a tap root, like dandelions, or creeping rhizomes, like couch grass (see p. 155 for illustrations of root types).
The danger in letting annual weeds get too big is when they flower and set seed. If you consider that each annual weed has the ability to produce hundreds if not thousands of seeds, all of which may potentially germinate in your garden, it motivates you to remove them before they do so. The adage ‘one year’s seeding, seven years’ weeding’ is probably, depressingly, an understatement.
Weeding between your established plants, it is not advisable to use weedkiller sprays as there is always the risk that there will be some drift or splash onto your carefully raised plants. Weedkillers are best reserved for spraying large areas.
Identifying weeds
On the following pages are the most common garden weeds. Every garden tends to have a problem weed, generally a perennial, and this tends to be something you learn to tolerate at a low level. Weeds coming from a neighbour’s garden are less easy to endure.
Bottom line