Get the upper hand in this battle against our cool weather enemies!
The garden bed has been getting pretty bare as the cool weather plants are taking their last gasps. I want to throw in a whole lot of lettuce seedlings and directly sow some beans to grow up the tomato stakes as I transition from legumes to solanaceae.
Come High Summer when the tomatoes go in, the weather is going to quickly turn things crispy, delicate seedlings will fry!
Although not considered traditional companion plants, they will act as a
nurse crop. They shelter seedlings from excessive sun, reduce weed competition and prevent erosion.
The beans will protect the young tomatoes as they grow up their supports. On the ground established lettuces will shade the roots, so constant mulching won’t be necessary, and more importantly will protect the true tomato companions that will only just be ready for transplant when weather is getting hot – marigolds, basil, amaranth, dandelions, chives.
Unfortunately my plan was brutally cut off at the ground and silvery tracks betrayed the criminal. Soon it will be too hot for the slimey ones to show their heads, but for now they are having a field day on delicious, sappy new spring growth. What’s a girl to do?! I’m yet to find herbs that repel snails (they just live in them!) and coffee grounds just don’t cut it. Sharp calcium rich egg shells and crispy seaweed help, but these snails are seriously out of control! There is not enough beer in the world to drown their enthusiasm!
THE SOLUTION?
Build a fortress! Take the idea of the juice bottle greenhouse and bring it to the garden bed! All we need is a minor modification, keep the bottle top on and drill some tiny ventilation holes to prevent the nasties crawling in. Bury it deep enough to protect against cutworm as well! Only 1 is needed for a lettuce until it is established, but for beans they can be stacked 3-4 high until the stem is thick enough to hold its own. Just put a short stick inside the greenhouse for it to climb and when you remove the bottle simply tie this to the taller stake. The trapped heat will also help the beans and lettuces thrive!
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Sharp eggshells deter snails and slugs, but also add calcium to the soil, available for next years crop
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As a rule of thumb I only harvest my lettuce when it has more than 6 leaves so I don’t take too many of its “solar panels”. Following this logic when your seedling can afford to loose one or two leaves to the snails, you can take the bottle off!
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Stack the bottles as high as you need, wait for stems to be thick enough that they can’t be felled with a single chomp!
Check out my next post to see how I have snail proofed the nursery!
We know why seaweed mulch is a good idea, but what’s the best way to use it?
Now you know the why, here is the how.
Before the blaze of summer can tempt you to take the plunge, how about a springtime stroll along the water’s edge? When you roast in the height of the hot weather so will your garden, now is the time to prepare ahead!
COLLECTION
It’s easy to be greedy when you know how good seaweed is for the garden, but only take small amounts and not all from the same spot. You don’t want to devastate the delicate beach ecosystems!
I make an outing of it, carrying a small bucket and strolling along, taking only palm sized pieces. I make sure there are some decent footprints behind me before I pick up another piece. These smaller pieces are also much, much easier to handle than lugging a great frond of kelp along the beach, the finer stuff makes better mulch anyway.
It’s better to gather seaweed ‘mid-beach’ because it is drier than that at the ocean’s edge and can be shaken free of sand.
Believe me, having transported wet seaweed home in the past, the great sopping, stinking mess of sodden seaweed is a headache not worth repetition. Conversely, anything too high up the beach has been there too long and may contain land weed seeds from the dunes.
WHEN TO APPLY
As it takes 3.5 months to release nitrogen back into the soil, don’t apply just as you plant out your prize tomato plants. The sudden decrease in nitrogen will stress them out.
Time it so when they start fruiting in mid summer they get that extra boost. This is beneficial not just in the case of tomatoes, but many fruiting plants as too much nitrogen in the soil early on can encourage vigorous leafy growth at the expense of flowers and therefore fruit!
So True Spring is the perfect time to apply seaweed mulch, just as you are sowing your tomato seeds, come the end of High Summer when the first fruit is ripening they’ll be crying out for the extra nutrients.
HOW TO APPLY IT
As simple as soak, crush and spread
As I mentioned in my post Seaweed Mulch Explained, seaweed itself is not particularly salty, it’s the sand that is very alkaline. So when I get home from the beach with my bounty I just shake the sand out and give it a good soak in a bucket to get any residuals off. Then I lay it in the sun to dry out again so I can crush it with my boots into a finer stuff.
This is optional if the pieces you picked are already quite small, but there is a satisfaction akin to jumping in puddles in the crunch this makes. The seaweed can then be sprinkled around each plant, carefully avoiding their stems and thoroughly watering it all in. In a month the companion plants should have filled in the gaps and any bare soil can be covered with a ‘chop and drop’ of any unruly herbs from the border.
COMPOST
Of course if you don’t apply it directly as mulch you can simply add it to your compost. While land plants require cellulose to thicken their walls to stop them flopping over, seaweed is low in cellulose as it’s supported by water and this means it breaks down really quickly in the compost heap. Sluggish composts often lacks nitrogen so seaweed is an excellent compost activator. It helps break down high carbon materials in the compost such as fallen leaves, newspaper and fruit waste. So if you have any extra seaweed lying around why not add it to the pile.
SEAWEED TEA
Another option is to soak it in a container of water for several weeks, then dilute a small amount in a full watering can and spray on or around struggling plants. When applied the nutrients are available straight away, unlike when mulching so it is excellent to pick up unhappy looking plants. It is very important to add oxygen to the brew by agitating it three times a day or it will become anaerobic (horribly stinky). This entails swirling it with a trowel until it forms a vortex to keep it aerobic. I must admit this is what drove me to using it as a mulch. A barrel of anaerobic seaweed ooze is just about as unpleasant as it sounds when it’s been soaking a while. Don’t even get me started on the visceral reaction I had when some of it spilled onto my pants and then began its merry journey downward into my boots. So I council if making a tea, make it in something small, but… when you can be as lazy as collect, rinse, apply, why bother? Your plants should never look sad if you have properly made their bed!
Perfected over billions of years, nature always provides a solution far simpler and more effective than anything we can dream up in a whole lifetime.
Every day with a hiss and a foam our beaches wash up a gift for gardeners – tonnes of seaweed bursting with nutrients and what’s more it’s free. Every year the council for Altona beach spends around $300,000 to remove it, $300,000 to beautify a beach from seaweed! It is either dumped in landfill or washed(!) and returned to the sea! I discovered this when I was researching to see if it was legal to gather seaweed in Melbourne, I’m going to go ahead and assume yes on this one.
A small percentage is now being converted into liquid fertiliser, which is a start, but wait a second…why does it need to be commercially processed to turn it into a liquid or dehydrated powder and bottled in plastic and delivered to a nursery and purchased for $10/L and diluted and sprayed on your garden and the bottle thrown in the recycle bin? Why do all that when it is the most divine mulch you’ll ever use and all you have to do is spend a day at the beach?
Now that sounds like an excellent way of saving time, energy and money!
WHY I USE SEAWEED MULCH
2.5 years ago we started our first vegetable garden. My mother gave me a jar of powdered seaweed for out little 1mx1m pallet garden, part of a no-dig recipe sprayed between layers of dry straw. Then Permaculture crept in and with it shiny tomes raving about seaweed tea, how could I resist making my own brew? The result, well…it was smelly, honestly it stank like a sewer! And some mosquitoes got in and that was the end of that idea! There had to be an easier way! There was – it was simple, just rinse it and spread it on the garden beds, done, easy. When my other quizzed me on it, I didn’t really have an answer, mulching is good, seaweed is good so don’t they make a perfect pair? I retaliated with research and was pleasantly surprised that it was actually a brilliant thing for your garden!
AND WHY YOU SHOULD TOO
nutrient rich and the nutrients are easily absorbed by plants
trace elements are transferred to the plant and its fruit, more nutrient rich for you too
free and easily accessible and free, a beach holiday once or twice a year is all you need
contains very little salt, the sand is what makes it too alkaline and this can be washed off
soil conditioner, healthier soil
plant conditioner, healthier plants
make plants more resistant to disease, shares no diseases with land plants
deters pest like snails and slugs
keeps soil moist – less watering (less heat stress)
insulates the soil – cool in summer, warm in winter (makes plants more frost resistant)
suppresses weeds, contains no land weed seeds
WHAT’S IN SEAWEED?
all major and minor plant nutrients
all necessary plant trace elements (over 60 in total)
alginic acid
vitamins
auxins
two or more gibberellins
and antibiotics
No wonder they say it’s good for humans to eat too!
When I read this list I’ll admit I wasn’t even sure what some of those things were, but it’s all pretty straight forward once you can get your tongue around the words!
These are all essential for plant growth and health, they are a plants food and drink.
NON-MINERAL NUTRIENTS
(hydrogen, oxygen, carbon) are provided by air and water, converted using the sun’s energy (photosynthesis) into starches and sugars. However, all the other required nutrients can be provided by seaweed.
MINERAL NUTRIENTS
dissolve in water and absorbed through plant roots. When soil minerals are not in balance plants become sickly. This is exacerbated when the same crop is planted year after year, depleting the soil of specific elements.
Just as iron in vegetables (non-heme) can be harder to absorb than iron from meat (heme), the minerals you are adding to your soil need to be in a form that is usable for the plants otherwise it won’t be absorbed.
Trace elements can be made available to plants by chelating (combining the mineral atom with organic molecules so they cannot form insoluble salts the plant cannot absorb).
Seaweed contains starches, sugars and carbohydrates that possess such chelating properties, so all the lovely nutrients it contains are available to the plants which need them.
VITAMINS
Soil depletion has adversely affected the vitamin and mineral content in our fruit and vegetables. Healthier soil rich in vitamins and nutrients leads to a healthier product for us to eat. Vitamins contained within seaweed include:
vitamin C
beta-carotene, fucoxanthin
B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin), B12
pantothenic acid, folic acid and folinic acid
vitamin E (tocopherol), vitamin K
other growth-promoting substances
AUXINS & GIBBERELLINS
Encourage the growth of more cells as well as enlarge, stimulating the growth in both plant stems and roots.
SOIL CONDITIONER
The alginic acid in seaweed , whether it be fresh, dried or liquid, improves the soils ability to retain moisture and hold together. This helps to form a good crumb structure: large particles providing drainage and air movement and small pore spaces between to hold water and plant nutrients. This means in times of heavy rain, seaweed can improves sloping, silty, sandy soil so that seedlings and nutrients no longer get washed away. Conversely when it is very hot the soil will be slower to dry out.
BACTERIA & NITROGEN
A good crumb structure stimulates growth of root systems as well as the activity of soil bacteria. The good bacteria secrete beneficial polyurinides that further condition the soil as the seaweed decomposes. The seaweed should be applied 3.5 months before the plants require an increase in nitrogen. This is because bacteria require nitrogen to break down undecomposed vegetable matter into simpler units, leading to a temporary reduction in nitrogen in the soil. After this latent period the overall amount of nitrogen in the soil is dramatically increased so it is beneficial to time this with for instance the fruiting of a tomato when the plant requires a little something. However, if a pick-me-up is required the nutrients in liquid seaweed are available at once and this can be used as a foliar spray absorbed directly through the leaves.
ANTIBIOTICS
Plants mulched with seaweed develop a resistance to pets and diseases. It is believed that soil fungi and bacteria produce natural antibiotics which control pathogen population reducing the likelihood of a number of plant diseases. The concentration of organic matter/seaweed in the soil increases the production of these antibiotics.
True Spring Preparation – Temperate Climate – Southern Hemisphere: September & October – Northern Hemisphere: March & April
FEVERFEW – GOOD COMPANION PLANT FOR HERB BORDER – ENHANCES THE GROWTH OF PLANTS AROUND IT
The wind began to whirl, but it was delicious, it was warm. It carried flower petals, dandelion seeds and the promise of rain.
Spring has come, there is no time to catch your breath, the gardening marathon begins.
Like bright, juicy drops of rain raspberries start to slowly ripen, then in a matter of days become a deluge of fruit. Strawberries too are ripening and all at once everything that was quietly growing over the cool months bursts into flower, even those things you’d rather not like broccoli, coriander and celery, but the chickens are please for these sweet offerings.
We’re getting our first hot days, climbing towards 30 degrees and with the first appearances of the predator insects we know we are safe at least for a few months until the more annoying flies and mosquitoes start plaguing us.
It’s our last chance to get the garden bed ready before the tomatoes get planted out in High Summer. Mulching, weeding, pruning and after that planting out some companions to lend some shelter when it starts to get really hot.
weeding
If vegetable seeds are slow to germinate, so are the weed seeds. If you didn’t do it last month this is a great time to pull out those pesky grasses and nutrient hungry fiends and mulch heavily to prevent them from springing up again. Soon with added sunlight and water they can get out of control.
Some “weeds” I leave, like dandelions which are edible and are a good companion for tomatoes as they exude a little something that helps the fruit ripen. Clover is a nitrogen fixer, absorbing nitrogen from the air and putting it back into the soil. There is no use pulling out something that is useful and leaving bare soil for something nastier to take root, better to leave it until you have a seedling in hand to replace it with.
pruning
The herb border around my garden bed has really sprung into life this season. Mint has sent out runners like a web through the garden bed and the Feverfew has grown enormous. True Spring is a great time to take cuttings and divide up your herb border, keeping it under control and if you can’t use those new plants there will be enough time for them to get over the trauma to be gifted at Christmas.
pest control
Everything is sending out juicy, sweet shoots that snails can’t resist. It’s not hot enough for them to retreat and all it takes is a storm for them to pop up under every leaf. They must be controlled before you plant out your seedlings. A week of beer traps and night time torch hunts with your work boots on will; keep them in check.
A strong smelling herb border with spiky leaves will mean less placed for them to hide during the day, these include Winter Savory and Thyme. I have learnt to my horror that edible violas are about the worst thing to grow on your garden edge, the tender, multitudes of leaves and flowers beautifully cascading over the edges the perfect snail mansion and nursery. I am trimming and pulling these out straight away!
mulching
The weather is still quite variable hot and dry one day, freezing and rainy the next, a good thick layer of mulch around the base of all your plants will help keep a balance of warm and damp to prevent your plants going into shock.
Remember snails like to hide in mulch so keep it fine and check each night for the slimey sneaks. More about mulching in my next post!
These two months are when you should really try and sow EVERYTHING you want to occupy you garden until Spring comes again next year, even things like silverbeet that you can plant later can be planted now and kept going all year with dedicated picking, watering and mulching.
This is the time to get the seedlings well established as High Summer will
knock tiny plants to the ground with its sizzling sun and bruising winds.
By Christmas there should be no bare earth in your garden beds, your plants crowded with little soldiers selflessly shading their neighbour and being shaded in return.
Afterall this is not meek and mild Europe where things can flutter in gentle summer breezes, spaced out rows, kissed by fairies and the like. In Australia, if snails don’t go down the line chomping up your progeny then our unfiltered, ozone depleted rays of suns will finish off the job. Plus won’t it be so much more relaxing knowing that your garden can be left for a week or two over Christmas, planting finished and resilient enough to take a few 40C days. (Hopefully you have a nice neighbour check in every 10 days or so)
planning
It’s hard to not be overwhelmed after a long winter of lethargy. I like to organise the seeds I’m going to plant for the season into glass jars with seed tags made out of plastic milk bottles. Clear plastic is hard to read and cardboard crumples with water, so I’ve found milk bottles best. The glass jars make it easy to see the seed labels and keep them dry if left outside on the propagation table.
I use to be precious with my seeds, sowing only a few at a time, but with a shoebox full of expiring packets, I’ve learnt is far easy to sow an entire packet at a time and save the fresh seeds for the next year.
