Wish I had an open fireplace...

[Creemteez]

Ok, so I'm turning over another new bed on my new lottie, nothing unusual, bit of couch, the odd dandelion making its way to Australia, and then.... Coal!
I appear to have hit a payload seam. I believe it was deposited there by the previous owner as there is quite a bit on the surface once you scrape away the grass. None of it is bigger than a walnut - most of it much smaller - and the soil is actually very nice in this area, well drained, crumbly and doesn't smell like a coal bunker.
My questions are: Will this coal deposit limit what I can grow in this bed? What can I do to balance the soil - if balancing is what it needs? I have already dug in WRM and riddled out a lot of the coal. Was planning to possibly use this bed for Raspberries.
Hey! Just thought! It might be charcoal, but it seems a bit hard for that. Anyway, same questions apply. Ta!

[TEB]

Send it my way please, boiler broke last Monday , no heat or hot water, oh well only another 5 weeks for the part to arrive

[snohare]

Don't worry, it will vanish as the growing season progresses, until just as the last frosts go, it too will be gone. (With the coaled weather !)
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Sensible now. Coal is just carbohydrate - actually edible if you are starving enough to ignore the added impurities and what it does to your teeth - so I doubt if the plants will really care that it is there. In effect I would expect it just to be like any other relatively friable stone, which soil bacteria and fungi might rather like, but has little direct effect upon the plants. That is just a guess though, based on the premise that plants don't eat carbohydrates, and fungi etc do so very slowly.
It's definitely not coke cinders ? That would be good for drainage and soil bacteria, quite common on old time industrial brownfield sites that were often converted to allotments way back when. That would no longer be acid, no problem at all.

[Creemteez]

Thanks guys, I'll sleep easy in my bed now!

[SarzWix]

I've just moved this over to Allotment Advice because I think it might be useful to anyone else who comes across the problem

[Snadger]

Reminds me of a good few years ago when most people had coal fires! They were digging some deep foundations for a big blacksmiths hammer in the smiths shop when they struck coal!
They sent the JCB home and the next day, miraculously the hole had been dug for them!

[snohare]

Yes, and you know what the greedy culprits were all saying as they feverishly competed to fill sacks at dead of night, don't you Snadger ?
"Mine, mine, all mine...!"

[Eyren]

"Mine, mine, all mine...!"

Groan! I'm going to have to stop reading the Vine at work if you're going to post dreadful jokes like that, Snohare!

[snohare]

If you groan out loud and they ask why Eyren, just tell them someone was having a sly dig at you...
(Sorry, it is because my blood sugar is bouncing. When that happens the part of my brain that does word association just goes hyperactive...I honestly have no control over thinking these up ! )

[Creemteez]

If you groan out loud and they ask why Eyren, just tell them someone was having a sly dig at you...
(Sorry, it is because my blood sugar is bouncing. When that happens the part of my brain that does word association just goes hyperactive...I honestly have no control over thinking these up ! )

Time for some slow-release carbs, I think, snohare!

[snohare]

Actually, eating protein with carbohydrate slows down the absorption of sugars....perhaps I should try a bit of ....(wait for it)
Coaled turkey ? !
I promise, that is the last one today.

[snakeshack]

why not wash it down with a glass of coke

[snohare]

I'll adit to the menu, snakeshack !