Ecological gardening

Hello, that sounds very interesting and useful!

I am hoping to establish a kitchen garden and have had some success but not much.  As you say the soil needs more care.

I'd be grateful for any advice

many thanks

Jay

Hi

How many square meters does your vegetable garden have? And how has the soil been treated for the past five years? What destroys soil it is tilling the soil more than 5cm deep.

Farmers in the region till the soil to eliminate wild weeds, and the consequences are disastrous in the short and medium term. We have heavy clay soil (very alkaline - salts - and high pH), which compacts like stone after the rains. The plants, with their roots, decompact the soil, for a better absorption of water in the soil.

Tilling destroys wild plants, and therefore the structure of the soil, and earthworms, which have both of them allow the soil to be aerated and fertilizedThe big problem with our soils on Aspe is that they lack organic matter. Plants and soil life acidify the soil, and therefore they lower the pH. Know that a plowed soil here has a pH of 8, while our vegetables require a pH of 7.2, so above this value, the plants suffer from various diseases because they cannot extract from the soil all the nutrients they need, and they are weak to attack,, and less production.

What are the problems you have encountered, why are you not satisfied with your crops? 

If you make a vegetable garden this year, even on damaged soil, it will be possible to produce a good harvest because I can give you addresses to get sheep manure (fertilizer) from a farmer here, and horse manure to repair your soil on the long term.

Regards

Hi thank you very much for the tips & advice and sorry for the delayed response

It is just a kitchen garden we are trying out  first & not a big area, although we have lots of space to develop as vegetable plot if we want.

Let us see how this works out!

Kind regards,