Alexandra Park Open Air Swimming Bath harringayonline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from harringayonline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Growing broad beans
Until last year I had always bought broad bean seedlings which would arrive in April and grow into tall plants over the following two or three months. Out walking in March one year, I noticed in an allotment that broad beans plants were already two feet high which led me to realise that these beans can be planted outside before the winter. Last October, this is what I did and within a few weeks they had germinated and small plants appeared. I was worried that they might not survive the cold but whatever frosts we had did them no harm at all. They flopped over and looked dead but perked up again as soon as the frosts had gone. This picture, taken four days ago, shows them up to half their full height and already in flower, I reckon we shall be eating them pretty early this year.
Peat-free compost
Not so long ago Veolia would occasionally give away loads of compost made from the contents of food waste and garden waste bins. The stuff was quite smelly and it was usually still warm from the fast composting system they used. I used it mainly for mulching trees and shrubs.
The Veolia source of giveaways eventually dried up and the company has now launched a range of products that they sell online under the name Pro-Grow (see: https://www.pro-grow.com/).
I recently purchased a load of one product sold as soil conditioner . It comes in 30 litre bags and I can tell you that it is an improvement on the free stuff. It doesn t smell, it has been much better sieved to get big chunks of wood out and I have yet to find any of the bottle tops and small plastic toys that used to turn up in the free stuff. I am counting on this new stuff to make it easier to work my heavy clay soil and to improve yields.