Attention Gardeners!

[S.richard]

Hi,
Thanks for your valuable suggestions. It seems I have to add more compost as well as need to purchase soil to soften the clay.

Another important thing, Could you please help where can I buy this tools? K-rauta, honkong, plantagen etc have similar kind of tools but they are very light and their metallic heads are small and narrow. Not suitable for heavy duty like the figures below. I am looking for these to dig the soil comfortably. I don't feel comfortable with shovel.





regards,
Richard

[Rip]

Most locals use shovel or pitch fork(? Talikko), so I think that must be the reason you have a difficulty in finding what you are looking for. I'd say to go for fully metal ones for long term use, but Fiskars I think has both also in partly composite material.

As for soil, compost of course is great, it is just a matter of what you think you can generate in large quantities. I" d still say sand could be a partial solution. You need ANYTHING in rather large quantity, and "moderate" quantities can make difference between a clay block you can break with your hands without holding a sledgehammer in them.

With one cubic meter of stuff you can cover 100 m2 one centimeter deep. if you want even 20 cm deep of soil that is only 2/3 of pure clay, that is 7 m3 - and anything organic goes down from original volume rather fast.

[DMC]

So who made any progress this year?

I grew a few potato, beans & peas, but not many. I have made some provision for next year though. A local farmer has agreed that in the spring he will use his tractor to turn over one of the areas I want to cultivate. This will be done in the spring when he has a tractor nearby.

I also bought some used things from a guy who was selling up to move to a house with no garden. I am now the proud owner of a rotovator, a greenhouse and a ride-on mower among other things. I have used the rotovator a bit but not much. It is good when the soil has previously been cultivated but is not great at tackling new ground. It should help a lot once the tractor has done the initial hard work. As for the greenhouse I have to prepare a base and then erect it, but I hope that will help a lot next year. Anything I should know before I go any further with that? I have never had a greenhouse before.

[Rosamunda]

This year I grew:
(Outside)
potatoes (Annabelle, Timo)
beetroot
leeks (still growing!)
brussels sprouts (still growing)
jerusalem artichokes (still growing)
globe artichokes (the tubers are "resting" in shoeboxes in the root cellar)
french beans
runner beans
asparagus
onions (red, yellow, shallots)
garlic
kohl rabi
carrots
courgettes (summer squash)
pumpkins
lots of herbs like french sorrel, borage, mint, tarragon, chives, etc etc

strawberries
blueberries (bush variety)
raspberries
aronia berries
blackcurrants (black and green)
redcurrants
rhubarb
gooseberries

In the greenhouse (plastic polytunnel):
tomatoes
lettuce and rucola
cucumbers
gherkins
aubergines (egg plant)
butternut squash
uchiki kiri (japanese squash)

Some things did well (winter squash, aubergines) , others did OK (beans, potatoes), others not so well (raspberries, summer squash). Can't help the weather, it was a rotten spring/early summer: it's warmer now than it was at Juhannus.

As for advice...
- manage your soil (compost, lime (if necessary), fertilizer)
- watch the weather, everything you do depends on what the weather is doing, even in a greenhouse
- keep the weeds down - I use elbow grease, and I plant things close together. No chemicals but that's up to you.
- use companion planting to attract the pollinators and repel the pests.
- cover carrots and brassicas with fleece to keep off the flies

We turn over the earth in the autumn because we are on heavy clay and the frost helps to break it down. We add in compost, manure at the same time and lime in early spring. I've given up trying to plant stuff outside early on. Wait until the frosts are well over.

The problem with greenhouse planting is keeping the temperatures down in the summer. We've had temps close to 50C and there is not much you can do to lower it except pump vast amounts of cold water through (we have a pump in the lake for this). Windy weather has also been a problem because ours is vry exposed. Will you have a heater in yours?

[DMC]

This year I grew:
[Everything !!]
....
The problem with greenhouse planting is keeping the temperatures down in the summer. We've had temps close to 50C and there is not much you can do to lower it except pump vast amounts of cold water through (we have a pump in the lake for this). Windy weather has also been a problem because ours is vry exposed. Will you have a heater in yours?

That is an impressive production. I am jealous.

For keeping the temperature down in the summer, my greenhouse has some automatically-opening vents to let heat out. I was also wondering about a heat storage system something like this:

I had not planned any other heater. Do I need to think again?

[Rosamunda]

We have those vents too and they do help a bit.

We don't have any heating in our polytunnel - the surface area is too large and it would cost too much to run an oil or electric heater. But we are thinking about some kind of solar-powered solution. I start off most of my plants in the house and then move them out when it's warm enough. It's a pain though. I have no idea is that solution would in Finland (I fell asleep before the end of the video ) but it's worth a try.

On the whole, the MIN temperature inside the polytunnel is only 2-3 degrees warmer than outside. But the temperatures fall much more slowly inside the tunnel so the MIN only lasts for (guestimate) an hour or so before sunrise. I have a weather station that records the outdoor wind, rain, temps etc but only a simple MIN/MAX thermometer inside the tunnel so I can't be too sure. In the autumn there were some frosts which burned the foliage on the winter squash, but the squash seemed OK. Not all my tomatoes ripened. In the end I took the last few kilos indoors to ripen off.