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Bourne Valley Garden Club
THE April lecture at the Bourne Valley Garden Club was given by Mr Peter Wright, a small holder, and entitled Growing to Eat.
He described his methods of growing vegetables and fruit and rearing chickens and pigs.
Having moved into a builder's yard he found that to have decent fertility, raised beds built up with imported soil and compost were essential.
These are about four feet wide so the centre is possible to reach from either side.
To reduce weeding, he recommends very close planting to exclude sunlight reaching the soil. For instance, potatoes are planted a foot apart in both plants and rows to form a light-excluding canopy, and only those plants such as onions and leeks with upright leaves which can't do this then require weeding.
Potatoes are not earthed up but covered with about a depth of a foot of straw which again suppresses weeds and retains moisture.
Having several beds enable crops to be rotated between them thereby reducing build up in the soil of pests, but one he doesn't rotate is runner beans.
Firstly they suffer from few soil pests and secondly by planting in the same places in adjoining beds, he grows them up sticks and over the intervening path between beds so taking up less bed space and allowing the beans to hang in the tunnel formed over the path where they can be easily picked.
Pests that have been particularly troublesome recently were rats and mice, and Mr Wright's experience was that these must be tackled quickly with baited traps, or they could quickly cause catastrophic losses.
Of fruit, he had found that cordoned apples and pears were particularly worthwhile and that they should be grown about a yard apart at about an angle of 45 degrees to the ground.
After they had reached a height of six foot they then could be lowered to an angle of 30 degrees and allowed to grow on again to a height of six foot thus giving relatively long closely spaced trees but all within an easily reached height.
On chickens, he rears them in a system in which there are two runs separated by a central hard standing.
The hens are allowed into one of either run until its scratched up and then into the other to allow the first to recover.
If the weather is too wet or both runs are overwhelmed then the hens are restricted to the hard standing. This way he has few health problems and maintains a good egg supply.
A portable run is occasionally placed over the raised beds to allow the hens to scratch out pests and persistent weeds.
His philosophy is to maintain good balance of plants and animals that retain fertility and reduce the work of husbandry and agriculture.
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