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Sally Morgan – Living on one acre or less

Healthy sustainable food production on small spaces plus books and gardens

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You can contact Sally via Empire Farm

Empire Farm, Throop Rd, Templecombe, Somerset, BA8OHR

sally (@) empirefarm.co.uk

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the_organic_plot

I love #bughotels and l'm always on the look out f

I love #bughotels and l'm always on the look out for interesting ones in gardens. Here are two built against a wall in the lovely #kitchengarden of the Pig Hotel at Combe nr Honiton.

Easy to make from bits of pallet wood, twigs and pots, they create minihabitats for a great variety of minibeasts. Decorative and functional.

The Pig kitchen garden (@the_pig_hotels) is full of brassicas and roots at this time of year but, despite the season, there is much to see and ideas to take home - watch out for more posts.
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#bughotel #ecofriendly #ecogarden #wildlifegardening #wildlifefriendlygarden #wildlifehabitat #devon #selfsufficientgardening #organicgarden #wildlifefriendly #bughabitat #bughouse

To celebrate World Soil Day, I'm writing about soi

To celebrate World Soil Day, I'm writing about soil regeneration. Simply put, soil regeneration means rebuilding soil organic matter and improving soil life. ⁠
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Many soils are in urgent need of some care and attention. For decades farmers and gardeners have subjected soil to chemicals, from artificial fertilisers to pesticides and fungicides. The result is a degraded soil that lacks life.⁠
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So how do you start repairing your soil? Here are a few pointers.⁠
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🌱 Go #organic ⁠
🌱 Don’t dig your soil ⁠
🌱 Add organic matter to your soil – compost, leaf litter, leaf mold, grass clippings, bio-digestate, woodchip etc. ⁠
🌱 Mulch your soil to protect it year round from rain, sun and wind. ⁠
⁠🌱 Grow cover crops / green manures. ⁠
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So why I have featured Phacelia? New research funded by Agri-tech Cornwall and carried out on Duchy College land has found that growing phacelia as a cover crop helps to build and stabilise soils, outperforming many other cover crops, including legumes. So sow #phacelia on your beds in autumn once crops are harvested and chop it down the following spring after flowering. Not only will you add a lot of biomass and nutrients to your soil, but bring in early predators to help with your pest control.⁠
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Don’t forget that rebuilding your soil means that you can sequester more carbon and this helps tackle climate change. Scientists estimate that we only have to boost soil carbon by a few percentage points to make a huge difference – so just think how much difference gardeners could make!⁠
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Want to know more Read my new blog - see bio⁠👆. Or check out my book for lots of info on soil health and more
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#worldsoilday #soil #soilhealth #covercrop

Ready steady cook! Ingredients for the next meal

Ready steady cook! Ingredients for the next meal - squash, chard, kale various, Brussels, leek, a rogue cucumber and some eggs

Love seasonal eating - no courgettes in sight!
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#kitchengarden #ediblegarden #allotmentuk #allotmentgarden #vegpatch #vegetablegarden #gyo #growitorganically #organicvegetablegarden #organicgardening #organic #organicvegetables #plottoplate #selfsufficient

The new compost pile - 🐕 for scale. We've been

The new compost pile - 🐕 for scale.

We've been clearing bullrushes from the pond. After leaving the dredgings by the pond for a while so aquatic life can escape, they have been moved to the allotment field to rot down. Now the winds have dropped we can cover with tarpaulin to keep the rain off.

Still debating whether to make it into a longer lower windrow or leave as is but looking forward to having lots of compost next year!
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#composting #compost #allotmentuk #allotmentgarden #ediblegarden #vegetablegrowing #vegplot #selfsufficient #ecogardener #organicvegetablegarden #healthyvegetablegarden #growitorganically #veggieplot

Rainbow chard - such a photogenic veg as well as b

Rainbow chard - such a photogenic veg as well as being very tasty!

I have loads of these all around the plot. I have harvested quite heavily - blanched and frozen in small tubs. It will look a bit sad over the next few months and then burst back into fresh growth in early spring to start giving again.

Chard is one of my 'can't be without' veg - what's yours?
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#rainbowchard #chard #vegplot #ediblegarden #allotmentuk #organicvegetablegarden #organicgardener #veggieplot #GYO #growmyownveggies #healthygarden #selfsufficient #growyourownfood

It's that time of year when you need to think ahea

It's that time of year when you need to think ahead and I'm not thinking seeds but potting compost.

As gardeners we buy tonnes of compost in plastic bags which have been transported across the country. They may even contain peat and artificial fertilizers - so its not sustainable. We need to be more self sufficient and make more of our own potting composts.

The first step is to have the right materials to hand and one of the best is leaf mould. And for that you need to start now and gather as many leaves as possible.

Leaves take a year or two to break down into a beautiful dark friable material that we call leaf mould.

So get out and collect as many leaves as possible, storing them in large bin liners, bulk bags or wire mesh bins. And wait - they don't need to be turned, just left in a corner of the garden or allotment until they are ready to use.
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#composting #peatfree #leaves #fallenleaves #allotmentuk #gardeningtips #organicvegetablegarden #allotment #vegetablegarden #ediblegarden #leafmould #makingcompost #sustainablegarden #ecogardener

Today my post is all about biochar. I’ve used #b

Today my post is all about biochar. I’ve used #biochar for many years after seeing the results of horticultural trials where it was mixed into potting compost. Seedlings grown with added biochar had healthy shoots and a better root system compared with those without.⁠
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My own very simple trials in which I have compared the germination and early growth of seedlings in #peatfree compost with and without biochar showed similar results⁠
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Biochar is a charcoal powder that is used as a compost or soil amendment. Its long been used around the world by indigenous peoples. In rainforests, the soils are thin and relatively infertile as the high rate of growth of the trees means that any nutrients released by the leaf litter are soon mopped up by the roots of trees and other plants, while the heavy rainfall means that any soluble nutrients are washed out. As a result soil used to grow crops is nutrient poor and lacking in organic matter so these early growers learned how to use biochar as a soil amendment. They placed plant matter and animal bones in trenches, covered it with soil and let it burn slowly in low oxygen conditions to make a charcoal. This amendment helped to create fertile soils.⁠
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We can use biochar in our gardens to improve the health of our soils and also to help counter climate change too, because the process of pyrolysis locks up carbon so there is less carbon dioxide, compared with burning plant biomass or leaving it to rot. In fact, the formation of one tonne of biochar from wood removes three tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere.⁠
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So now I use biochar in my potting composts, I add it to soils, containers and when planting out trees and shrubs.

There's not enough space here to write at length, so I have written a detailed blog which you can find in my linktr.ee bio ⁠
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.#allotmentgarden #ediblegarden #healthysoil #soil #climatechangegardening #organicgarden #gardeningtips #allotmentuk #soilamendment #ilovegardening #healthygarden #healthyvegetablegarden #climatechange

It's mid November and so mild that many flowers ar

It's mid November and so mild that many flowers are still delivering around the veg plot.

I was pleased to see I've still got a good diversity in floral structure and colour - but why is that important?

We are told that it's important to have a continuous supply of flowers in the garden to bring in pollinators which is quite right. But insect predators are just as important but often overlooked when choosing flowers. We select bee friendly plants but these may not suit the predator hoverflies for example as they have shorter mouthparts and can't reach the pollen.

So diversity in floral structure is all important. Have a look around your plot and see how many different types of flowers you have.

Featured on my collage - marigold, white borage, salvia x2, Clary, nasturtiums, Tithonia, bladder campion and one you may not welcome - hogweed - which is brilliant for predators.

Interesting? It's something I cover in depth in my book The Healthy Vegetable Garden published by @chelseagreenbooks ( check out their sale on their website)
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#gardenflowers #vegplot #flowersforbees #mygardentoday #novembergarden
#ediblegarden #vegpatch #allotmentgarden

Autumn toadstools - I love the way these transient

Autumn toadstools - I love the way these transient fungi pop out of the leaf litter.

These are in the field, but there's a great diversity of toadstools appearing in the woodchip mulch around the garden at this time of year.its fascinating to see how the fungi vary with the different sources of wood chip, with an all together different selection growing on the decaying straw.

Fungi are such important members of my garden ecosystem, their thread like hyphae creating a fungal network in the ground, many recycling nutrients while others have mutual relationships with plants.

Nodig is key in this relationship as every time you move the soil, you damage these networks.

If this interests you, you can read more in my book The Healthy Vegetable Garden where I delve into the role of fungi in plant health. Published by @chelseagreenbooks
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#organicvegetablegarden #toadstools #leaflitter #gardenfungi #woodchip #organicgarden #vegpatch #vegetablegrowing #allotmentgarden #healthygarden #healthyvegetablegarden #nodig #nodiggarden #gardenecology #gardeningmakesmehappy #gardentips

My perennial black kale - yes you read that right

My perennial black kale - yes you read that right - perennial.

Three years ago I planted 3 seedling black kale in the polytunnel over winter - I left them in place the following spring and they have continued to grow ever since, getting larger and larger and yielding loads of leaves.

There are three photos - the current plants and what they looked like in spring when I chopped them back to stop them setting seed.

They suffered from caterpillars over the summer and then got a lot of whiteflies. Fortunately Encarsia wasps ( biocontrol) sorted out the whitefly and they are now clear.

now I have three large plants and loads of leaves to keep me going over winter.

We grow most crops as annuals but many are actually short-lived perennials. You just have to stop them setting seed.

Give it a try.
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#vegpatch #blackkale #perennialvegetables #polytunnel #organicvegetablegarden #veggiegarden #vegetablegrowing #gardeningtips #gyo #sustainablefood #brassicas #growvegetables #experimentalgarden #healthyvegetablegarden #allotmentgarden #allotmentuk #ediblegarden #biocontrol

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Compost – peatfree, aminopyralid and digestate
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