Restoring soil structure and simple farming in a wet climate

I've been busy in between rain and sleet, moving more seaweed and twiggy branches to the two growing areas. Also I'm thinking about making one or more dead hedges.
This week I got round to taking a load of blackcurrant cuttings and have the idea of making a boundary hedge of sorts around some of the area, demarcating it and possibly adding some windbreak effect in time. I planted them in three quarter circles, with the open side to the south west so the afternoon sun is allowed in. I'm not actually expecting much windbreak effect, since the bushes only grow to 4 feet or so, but they will form a nice edge to the area catching the sun and hopefully the trees behind will grow up and provide more protection. There are three different blackcurrants I have taken cuttings from, which all fruit well for me. I do have another which so far hasn't been so successful, so I didn't bother with that one. I have also taken a very few cuttings of a red gooseberry and put them in near the lazy bed. Since there weren't many of those I did turn a turf over to give them a better chance, but the blackcurrants are so numerous that I just stuck them in the turf. I've found before that I still get a good percentage take this way, but I hope that I'll be able to do something to knock back the grass competition.
On the southern side I have started to plant comfrey thongs, transplanted from my fruit jungle near the house. Really these need the grass competition removing to help them establish, so I need to look at what I can do in this respect over the summer. I found in the past that it takes several years otherwise for the comfrey to grow enough to out-compete the grass, but I'm hoping in time it will do that, and provide a bit of a weed barrier to stop the creeping grass from reinvading every year. It will also provide a potential green manure closeby, both for the currants and the growing area if extra nutrition is required in the summer growing season.
I've tried to mark up this photo with the approximate lines of the currants (in purple) and the comfrey (in green).

Problem: I have compacted silty soil with little nutrients or organic material, excess water most of the year, probably anaerobic, and very acidic.

I'm thinking that it will take more than one season growing to get Daikon radish to penetrate the soil and rectify the soil issues a bit, so I'm looking for quicker ways, that I can apply to at least part of the area. I understand that a healthy microbe network in the soil means the plants will be able to access the nutrients in the soil and getting that balance can be tricky. I'm concerned that the wet will mean the soil reverting to anaerobic all the time, so want to introduce some drainage. I've also read or heard that the microbes only get growing above about 12 degrees Celsius. Now our climate on Skye does not get above 12 Celsius on average until June, so the plants aren't going to get much help for the early part of the season. I've been thinking of how to improve the microclimates of the growing beds to increase the soil temperature and I've come up with a modified bed system illustrated below.

Assymetric raised Bed System

The final profile of the beds is sloped asymmetrically so that the larger part of the bed faces slightly South. This will catch more of the sun energy and hopefully enable the bed to warm up more quickly. I have read somewhere that this is one of the advantage of the lazy beds, however this is not how they appear to have mainly been constructed locally. If you look at satellite pictures of the area the beds face all sorts of ways and I think they are mainly oriented up/down hill. As it happens up/down hill also gives the South facing orientation that I'm thinking of on my field.
I've read that french drains have traditionally been constructed using bundles of sticks. So what I'm thinking of doing is laying some of my tree prunings from coppicing this year under the highest part of the beds. Possibly wrapping the bundle in cardboard or newspapers. I think the slope of the Southern bed is shallow enough that the drainage down hill will be about right for this. The Northern bed has a slightly more steep slope, so I'm thinking of leaving that to the slower process of soil regeneration with roots.
I'm thinking of double digging the beds. The movement of the soil is illustrated above with arrows. Since I don't really have subsoil, (just bedrock!) I'm not worried about inverting the upper and lower layers. If I put the turf layer on the bottom, this will add organic matter at the lower layers and (hopefully) reduce the turf regrowth. I can then add whatever organic material I can to the upper layer, possibly partly on top, partly mixed in. I have a number of options here -
Some woodchip that has been standing for a year: There is limited amounts of this, and it may be more valuable in the slow build area instead.
Seaweed: Effectively more than I can collect, is still washing up on the beach from the winter storms.
Twiggy bits: I have a fair amount of older branchwood from last year and previous year's coppicing - very fragile, but not as 'woody' as the woodchip, since the branches are all the smaller diameter stuff that is only useful for kindling.
Compost from shop: I have a number of bags of last year's nice peat free compost left over from the shop. I was thinking of scrapping this off anyway, since it's getting a bit old and I will have fresh compost in soon. I could buy in some bulk compost, but somehow this seems a bit extravagant.
There are more options - for example I could get barn waste from neighbours, but I'm slightly concerned about the possibility of contamination with various icky things like aminopyralid herbicides and worming compounds, so I'd rather avoid using these I think.
I might be able to prepare three beds the length of the Southern bed like this before sowing in spring (late April) with deep rooting annual plants that would prime the soil biota for next year. I need to think about the best 'green manure for this purpose still.
I'm also thinking of alternatives to the Daikon radish for soil penetration. I think I'll stop short of sowing docken, but dandelion is a possibility, and I'm thinking fennel is another possibility that does quite well here.

Sorry about the lengthy post, as you can tell I've done quite a bit of plotting and scheming, and I would be interested in any other additional thoughts people may have. I'd particularly be interested in any measurements that I can take to quantify the improvements I hope I will have achieved.

I had no luck whatsoever with Daikon they grew in the lovely top soil and as soon as they hit the clay they stopped dead. just like every other root crop.

I don't think that the microbes that you and I deal with only get going at 12C because my soil doesn't get to that temperature until Late June in the open field and Mid July under the trees.  I spent a lot of time last year sticking a thermometer in the ground!

When I lived in a swamp I found that digging out the paths and putting it on the beds did several things, one it raised the ground out of the water table, two it warmed up much faster, it also made the beds drain much better but it meant I always had to wear wellies as I was in effect walking in  small drainage ditches which in my situation had flowing water in them throughout the growing season. I didn't need to do anything other than raise the beds to get drainage. I did my beds up and down the hill, which worked out to be N/S

If you want massive roots and don't mind the burrs try burdock, that stuff should love where you are. Or even rhubarb, it's easy to grow from seed and it's roots are huge and very deep, and it gets fairly large in it's first year. (If you need seeds shout I have a LOT) it has the advantage of liking it wet.

Turning the turf over may or may not help, when we moved into this place the field had just been ploughed for the first time in 30+ years. He ploughed it really deep about 40cm or so and did a good job (other than it really being to deep and bringing up the underlying chalk) there was no turf showing. It took 2 months for the couch grass, dandelions, docks and creeping thistle to come back up, and since the roots were now 40cm down they were absolutely impossible to get out. Over the area I'm dealing with hand pulling just isn't possible so I've been murdering it in stages using black plastic. So as a conclusion, if you don't have any of the above you'll probably not have anything coming back up, but if you do expect it to reaper.

Thanks for the helpful post Skandi, I think you and I have very similar growing conditions except I'm possible a bit milder in winter and you at least seen to have sub soil, even if it is clay!
The temperature is one reason that I would rather develop my own soil biota in situ, even if it does take longer. I'd love to get hold of a microscope and look at what I've got, but I can't justify buying one with reasonable magnification. I'm trying not to be extravagant to the moment, although if I get my decluttering organised I may be able to make a bit of cash for extras that way.
Luckily this part of the soil has little in the way of weeds. The grass is very fine and forms a fleece on top of the ground. I call it "blood grass" because sometimes the tips are scarlet as it they've been dipped in fresh blood. Sometimes it looks really ominous as if something bad has happened there! I have creeping thistle elsewhere, but this part is an area where nothing much seems to grow other than grass. There is a bit of vetch and pignut, but no dock. I think there is a bit of couch at one end, so I'll probably have more of this once I improve the soil (ha ha!)
I hadn't thought of rhubarb....It would certainly do the trick, but I think it would require rather more killing once I wanted to grow other things there. But burdock is something I had considered. And I don't think I'd mind a bit of dandelion anyway (I have some large flowered seeds saved that noone seems to want (ha ha!))
There are two sorts of deep rooters I want: things annual or biannial for the dug areas to add organic matter and prime the soil biota, and something tougher that could be a perennial that is relatively easy to get rid of for the areas I'm trying not to dig. Fennel seems to do quite well for me and I've heard of other people in the highlands that have used it for clearing growing areas. I may try and get some more seed to propagate some more. Since I divided my plant last year and I don't think it would take another division.

My old house had the clay layer under the soil I wouldn't say sub soil as it was pure clay with flints. We were on an old glacier lake so rich anoxic silty soil over solid clay meaning a suspended watertable between 30cm and 1cm down from the surface depending on the time of year.
Where I live now is free draining sandy soil but only 30cm deep under it we have chalk and flints. no chance of turning that into soil.
I think the climate is similar I suspect I am both a bit warmer in summer and a bit colder in winter. All of my fennel died last year at -18C (a very abnormal temperature for here) my Bay tree survived even though it was less than 1m from one of the fennel's.


You could look at other wild umbelifers, but they may be harder to get rid of than you want. Hogweed and the like. Deep rooted and easy to remove perennials.. that might be harder!

Update on Northern growing area:

I've started making a dead hedge to the windward side of the not-very-lazy-bed. I used a metal spike to make holes as deep as I could before pushing some of the longer birch branches into the holes as the "warp" of the dead hedge. Even so, they probably only went in about 8 inches or so, some a bit less. It's been pretty windy up till today, but they haven't blown out of the ground yet! I then wove smaller birch and alder branches around the vertical sticks to give a bit more protection. Although the dead hedge isn't very tall yet, when I sit behind it I can feel some shelter, so it may help the growing area in the bed a bit.  The shape of the fence is not ideal, as it is slightly cupped the wrong way, focussing the wind, rather than shedding it. This is due to it being placed where I already have little spruce establishing, which in a few years will be a good windbreak themselves, and a few more will provide too much shade for veg. growing. I also stuck in more comfrey thongs there, which will hopefully give a bit of a grass break beside the path, which I have roughly planted with a few daisy and white clover plants gathered from elsewhere.

Not-very-lazy-bed and dead hedge under construction ancestral farming

In the main part of the northern plot (which I'm going to try and decompact the soil by plant growth only rather than digging) I have continued mulching with seaweed and wood chips. I've put about a 4 inch layer of seaweed and a 1-2 inch layer of woodchip on top on part of it. Even though the woodchip has been sat for a year, there is only mycellium visible in the middle of the pile, which presumably has been a bit warmer and drier. Unfortunately I disturbed a small toad who had been hibernating in the pile, but since I have frogspawn in the pond now, I guess he's due to wake up about now anyhow :( .
It's a pretty slow job since I have to collect the seaweed from about 2 miles away at the seashore in bags, then wheel the bags down the hill to the growing area, spread it out, dig up the woodchip and wheel that down and layer on top. One carload of seaweed doesn't seem to go very far (two loads in photo below). The grass is starting to grow now, and the areas that I mulched earlier in the year in the south area have some green starting to grow through. I'm laying some cardboard under some more seaweed to see how much difference it makes to the weed regrowth. I've just started doing that today, so it's not in this photo which was taken earlier.

View from downhill: Seaweed and woodchip mulch

I've found that a border fork is the best implement to dig the woodchip with. A shovel just locks and won't dig in, and a normal fork has too wide spaced tines, so the woodchip falls through.

Edited to add - no I've been using a wheelbarrow, not the dumper in the photo.

A quick update on progress this week:

North area - continuing the mulching of the 'no dig' area with cardboard and seaweed as mentioned in the last post. I've also topped some of this with some woodchip, albeit slightly thinner than the area that had no cardboard. I estimate I'll need maybe three more carloads of seaweed to complete the rest of this area with mulch.

Cardboard under seaweed mulch

South area - started double digging my "zig-zag" raised beds today. I decided to make them four sections across rather than three as was illustrated in the post above. That means I can have an access path along the bed and still have a reasonable width of bed. The first strip is just to the north of a monkey puzzle seedling that I planted last autumn. You can see the tree shelter (cut off bottle) in the picture below. I marked the shadow cast by the sun at midday to determine where South was, and made the bed perpendicular to that.

First width marked out and dug one spade depth

I moved the top spit and the lower spit of the first strip, and put the soil to the North of where I hope the beds will end up, and then discovered that the base layer beneath is not quite rock. In places it seems to be a sedimentary layer - quite orange/red in colour, which I understand is typical of soil under periodic inundation. I managed to penetrate this with the spade and certainly in parts this is more like a subsoil, albeit still very hard and shallow. Sometimes I think it was actually 'rotten rock' (a fractious layer of rock in between the harder basalt layers that make up this part of Skye) but I did manage to loosen a little of this for the first width dug.

Look! I've got subsoil!

Two strips dug - sub soil loosened in first strip

I put the top turf layer of the second width to oneside as well, just to give me more space to dig. The turf of the third strip went onto the loosened sub soil of the first strip and the underneath layer of the second strip went on top of this. That was quite enough digging for one day and I was grateful to be losing the light at 6.30 which stopped further work!

One day's work three strips dug

I now have to decide whether to loosen the sub soil of every strip, or just do every second strip, since it was such hard work (involving stamping on the fork at times!) and whether to make the stick drain along the last or next-to-last strip of the bed.
I also need to find out whether my inclined beds have a proper name. I've been calling them zig zag beds (Z beds?) but if there is a recognised name for beds inclined to the sun, I should use that instead.

I've not made as much progress in the last week as I'd hoped - the weather has been less kind, and we spent one of the few fine afternoons searching for our dogs that had taken themselves off for an adventure! (they came back safely after five hours without apparently getting into any trouble luckily).

Making birch stick bundles

I've been making bundles of sticks (I won't use the f- word in deference to the US base of this Forum see this tinkering thread for explanation) to go in the bottom of my newly dug beds. So far I've only made them from the birch twigs left from the coppicing I did earlier. I've been very pleased at how easy they were to make. Just using a couple of longish thin twigs to secure around the bundle and tuck the ends under seems to secure the bundle pretty well. They're not perfectly the same, but I'm pretty happy they'll do the job OK. I don't think I'll have enough of the birch to do the whole bed - I think there will be four drains in total in the Southern patch that I am preparing by double digging, and putting in drainage in this way.  I do have plenty more alder twigs though, but I will probably have to use some willow to secure around those bundles since the alder is much more brittle.

First drain extension

So I've only dug as far as the end of the first bed, three double spade widths, so far. I'll lay the sticks as a drain in this last width and down the extension I have made so that the drain can....drain! The extension will take the water to the surface down the hill from the growing area. If I leave the end of the sticks exposed I can monitor how well the drains perform over time. I thought it might be interesting to see if wrapping the stick bundles in newspaper, or fleece has a beneficial effect on the durability of the drains performance. I haven't broken up the soil under where I'm going to lay the sticks. I thought about it, but there will be waterlogging under the level of the stick drains and I want them reasonably low to reduce the waterlogging, so didn't think the extra effort woud be beneficial.

Again less progress than hoped for this week. Shortages of staff meant less time at home despite a week of pretty good weather. We often get dry weather for a few weeks in spring.


Stick bundle overlap


Covering the first drain bundle

So I've continued the zig zag beds. Having checked the levels of the drainage channel, I laid the birch twig bundles with the thick end downhill and laid on top of the twiggy ends. Due to the location of the trees planted downhill, I dug the next two drains so that they merge together and don't get too close to the trees below. I still haven't dug any of the third bed, but located where the drain would come out of it. Unfortunately I've broken the handle of my mattock levering out what turned out to be good rock rather than rotten rock....


Second and third drain merging

On the not very lazy bed I have tucked in some marsh woundwort tubers on the north side; one of the plants I have located has really nice sized tubers. I also planted a few silverweed roots on the sunny side of the bed. The seaweed has dried to a crust, but is still moist and soft underneath.


Marsh Woundwort tubers

Some of the additional seeds I ordered have arrived. I've concentrated on seeds for soil improvement rather than the landrace seeds, since I've spend quite a bit of money on seeds already this year! Looking forwards to having plenty of my own seeds perhaps in a year or two. The green manure seed I have got for the zig zag beds has alsike clover (good for cool acid soils) phacelia and tiller radish amongst others. It is designed to be a winter cover crop, but I think with my cool summers it will probably be OK. I should be able to sow the first couple of beds pretty soon.

So I planted some seeds!

Not crop seeds yet, although I should be able to sow the broad bean/fava seeds now. The seeds are a green manure mix for the southern zigzag beds.

I've finished digging two complete beds. I decided to take up the next row of turf adjacent to the bed also. The soil was falling over the grass anyhow, so it will make a better edge to the bed, and give me more turf to build up the last bed of the area. I'm finding it takes quite a bit to get a good height.

I then trod down (to try and reduce mice sized holes!) and raked over the first bed to give a light surface structure, before sowing the seed, raking over and tamping down. It's tricky working on a slope, so unless there is a really good benefit, I suspect I will allow the beds to revert back to flat over time!

South is to right

The green manure mix is technically for overwinter cover, but I think my summer is cool enough for it to be good at this time of year too. I got it from Cotswold grass seeds; UK based, they stock some organic sourced seeds and were very helpful when ordering by phone (delivery can be awkward for me). The mix contains:
26% annual ryegrass (westerwolds)
20% crimson clover
20% mustard
18% fodder radish
6% red clover
4% tillage radish
4% phacelia
2% alsike clover

I chose it for the tillage radish (daikon) and the alsike clover, which is supposed  to do better in damp acid soils.....
I managed to get it done on Saturday which was good as the soil was nice and dry - the forecast for the weekend was for rain and this has turned out to be the case for yesterday, today (and still forecast for tomorrow) so the seeds got a good watering in!

After the steady rain at the start of the week, we've had wintry showers, so the new seeds have had a good chance without drying out. Even after a couple of days I could see the ones at the surface staring to sprout. As days went on I thought there were fewer visible seeds, so I think something may be eating them. To give a comparison I've put three of my slug rings into the bed. If it is slugs, these are pretty good at diverting them away from growing plants. I don't expect they will be effective against mice or birds though.

Slug protection ring in green manure bed

It'll be interesting to see a difference between in the ring and out in a few days. Still no convincing leaves, but lots of little root shoots, especially where the soil is disturbed. I wonder whether I sowed a bit thickly?

And......the exciting news is that I planted the first of my landrace seeds. Now into April, I'm confident that the fava beans will be fine. They may well have been OK last month, but won't come to any harm and may grow a little quicker now. I have a reasonable selection of early ripenng, dwarf, field and winter hardy beans to start me off: Quite a variety of colours and sizes. I resisted getting some of the crimson flowered broad beans, which have magenta rather than white flowers, and there's another interesting primitive bean called the Martock bean so I may try and add them both in later.

Fava and broad bean seed landrace starting selection

So I've decided not to try and make too much of a polyculture this year, but to divide the bed into sections and sow each with a mixture of similar seeds. This will give an intimate mix for cross fertilisation without too much competition from overpowering plants. I'm going to observe the growth style and hopefully increase vastly my seed stock of saved pea and bean seeds with saved seeds for next year, when I can try some different planting areas - at least in my sloping solar beds.
I divided the not very lazy bed into 6 - three are for peas and beans and the other half for biannual vegetables and roots. I forked over the top of the first third very lightly and raked it to fill in the crevices between the turfs and loosen it enough for sowing, then I divided that bed into 4. I'd already split my seeds evenly into 4 packets so as to ensure a reasonable spread of the different types of beans over the bed. Having scattered the beans over each section in turn I poked them in by finger, redistributed the seaweed over the top to disguise them a bit and them poked twigs upright to try and deter the birds. I'm not intending to do this either every year necessarily, but the twigs may give the growing beans some support (the taller plants may suffer in the wind anyhow). The wood may be useful for surface mulch, or I can pull them off into the paths depending on how things go. I just feel that this first year I'm better off giving the beans every chance while the seeds are so precious. In subsequent years I can select more for plants that don't need so much nursing.

First lazy bed section sown with broad beans and protected with twigs

So I got down the hill for the first time in a few days this afternoon. I've not had so much time off this week, due to staff shortages in the shop. I was hoping that I might see some life in my broad bean bed, but it's not looking very promising as yet. Hopefully the beans just haven't sprouted yet, but I'm afraid that the voles may have eaten the lot. Time will tell, it's only been a few days, but I had a poke around, and I couldn't see any beans at all.....It's early enough that I can plant more if I want too, although I don't have more of some of the starting seeds.

Bits of good news though: first the green manure seeds in the solar aspect beds are growing well now.



The brassica seedlings are pretty obvious, there are both daikon radish and mustard in the mix I think. There are at least two other different seeds germating as well. There seems to be a similar spread of seedlings within the anti-slug collars and outside them, so at present no dramatic slug problem.
Since these seeds have done so well I decided it was late enough to plant out my radish and broccoli seeds. I took just a few of each, since these are going to be quite big plants as they mature. They have gone in next to the broad bean bed....

More good news was signs of life from some of the new comfrey plants from the roots I planted in the grass around the Northern area.



I think these obvious ones are the ones that had growing sprouts on the thongs. Hopefully the naked roots will aslo start to grow leaves pretty soon. The currant cuttings'  leaves are breaking, but it is too early to say whether the cuttings will survive or not. They just don't realise yet they are detached from their parent plant.

I also had some lovely gifts from a neighbour. They have a productive vegetable garden, which they have been developing over the last couple of years. They gave me some more seed potatoes which they had surplus. Bonus was they were already sprouted, so I have planted them straight out. I've planted them in the Nothern patch in an area that was mulched with grass cuttings last autumn. I'm expecting the grass to grow back again, but at present it all looks quite dormant except for some pignut and sorrel growing through. I'll try and mulch the potatoes as they grow with cardboard and whatever else I can find. I have a few bags of horse manure from the same neighbour: organically fed and wood chip based, so no issue with aminopyralid, which I am nervous of.
I hadn't intended to plant potatoes, but with the way thing are this year it seems like a good action.....They should help clear the soil, and the mulching as they grow will feed it too. So the two varieties I planted are charlotte, which I think is a second early, so may escape the blight, and a variety I'm told is known as 'Skye blue' which is a local strain. My neighbour says they really like it and the tubers came from someone who has grown it locally for about 40 years. The tubers are a dark purple in colour, although having been chitting, the mature colour may be less dark. I still have the pink fir apple from my gardening club win, which are chitting on my windowsill at present, so three different potato varieties in total to plant.