Week 39 - Bed PC8

Cleared out potatoes, dug up the soil and sowed:

• Landsberger Mix

In the paths on the west side of the bed we sowed:

• White Clover

This will form a low growing carpet of cover crop that will fix nitrogen and tolerate a certain amount of walking on.

Week 39 - Bed PC8 Planting

Cleared out potatoes, dug up the soil, and then broadcast sowed a green manure mix containing:

• Italian Ryegrass - a fast growing hardy grasing grass which will produce a lot of biomass
• Crimson Clover - a quick growing, vigourous annual which fixes nitrogen and will attracts bees in the spring
• Winter Vetch - a hardy nitrogen fixing forage plant

This combination of green manures is know as the "Landsberger Mix" and is promoted as the ideal overwintering composting crop, producing a lot of organic material, adding nitrogen to the soil and keeping soil and nutrients from washing away with the winter rains, and preparing the soil for next season. The crop will be dug into the soil next spring to compost in place.

In the path on west side of the bed we sowed:

• White Clover - a low lying nitrogen fixing crop that is suitable for undersowing

This will form a low growing carpet of cover crop that will fix nitrogen and tolerate a certain amount of walking on.

Week 39 - Bed PC7 Planting

Cleared out potatoes, dug up the soil, and then broadcast sowed a green manure mix containing:

• Italian Ryegrass - a fast growing hardy grasing grass which will produce a lot of biomass
• Crimson Clover - a quick growing, vigourous annual which fixes nitrogen and will attracts bees in the spring
• Winter Vetch - a hardy nitrogen fixing forage plant

This combination of green manures is know as the "Landsberger Mix" and is promoted as the ideal overwintering composting crop, producing a lot of organic material, adding nitrogen to the soil and keeping soil and nutrients from washing away with the winter rains, and preparing the soil for next season. The crop will be dug into the soil next spring to compost in place.

In the paths on either side of the bed we sowed:

• White Clover - a low lying nitrogen fixing crop that is suitable for undersowing

This will form a low growing carpet of cover crop that will fix nitrogen and tolerate a certain amount of walking on.

Week 38 - Bed PC8

We finally got around to clearing this bed of vegetation, but there are still a some potatoes to be dug out. The ones that we dug today were still in good condition.
One thing that we noticed is that there were not any nitrogen fixing nodules on the roots of the beans and peas that we pulled up. This was the same in the other beds. This lack of extra nitrogen might explain why these crops did so poorly in this bed where they had to compete with the hungry potatoes.

Week 38 - Bed PC7

We finally got around to clearing most of the remaining vegetation off of this bed, though there are still potatoes to be dug.
We were unable to find any nitrogen fixing nodules on the roots of the bean and pea plants. This lack of extra nitrogen might explain why these crops did so poorly in this bed where they had to compete with the hungry potatoes.

Week 38 - Bed PC6

This bed is looking very straggly.

The Brussels Sprouts are small but look healthy.

Some of the beetroot are getting quite big, but they are small for their age. The beetroot planted at the same time in the other beds were harvested at a larger size several months ago. This slow growth will affect the taste.

Week 38 - Bed PC4

We pulled all of the remaining lettuce out of this bed and thinned some of the longer growing root crops, but it seems that it is too late in the season for any decent yield. It feels a bit of a waste to be spending additional time in trying to rescue this bed when there is other work to be done that is probably more fruitful.
The plants look reasonably healthy, just not big enough. There is a difference between a small carrot and a stunted carrot - especially in taste.

Week 38 - Bed PC3

We dug this bed, broke up the hard pan, tried to remove as many stones as we could, and buried the sod to keep the existing fertility in the bed. We filled the raised bed with leeks transplants:

• Monstruoso di Carentan - (72 transplants) an early variety that can be harvested from Oct to Jan.

This is obviously not a polycrop bed, but we are using the bed to take some of the leeks that we did not have room for in the other gardens. We sowed too many leeks, or more accurately, we did not thin them out enough.







These leeks should have been transplanted earlier, and will not likely reach a substantial size before growth slows down over winter.

Week 38 - Bed PC1

The plants have mostly filled the bed, we keep moving vines back into the bed so that we can cut back the surrounding grass and eventually dig the adjacent bed.

There is one reasonable sized squash from the four plants - a Uchiki Kuri variety - though there is hardly any trace of the Becky pumpkin plant, so perhaps only three plants.

A few of the Ebisu squashes have grown a bit larger, but the one on the right has been damaged. It looks like something bit a hole in it.

Week 38 - Bed EX8 Planting

We dug up the remaining potatoes and prepared a seedbed and over the entire bed, including under the broad beans and peas, we broadcast sowed a green manure mix containing:

• Italian Ryegrass - a fast growing hardy grasing grass which will produce a lot of biomass
• Crimson Clover - a quick growing, vigourous annual which fixes nitrogen and will attracts bees in the spring
• Winter Vetch - a hardy nitrogen fixing forage plant

This combination of green manures is know as the "Landsberger Mix" and is promoted as the ideal overwintering composting crop, producing a lot of organic material, adding nitrogen to the soil and keeping soil and nutrients from washing away with the winter rains, and preparing the soil for next season. The crop will be dug into the soil next spring to compost in place.

The second growth of peas are filling out and we have harvested a very small but tasty crop.

Week 38 - Bed EX7 Planting

We dug up the rest of the potatoes and prepared a seedbed.

The Sugar Snap Peas are producing pods ...

... as are the broad beans. Although the crop will be small, these plants should keep fixing additional nitrogen into the soil (if there is any of the particular bacterial present in the soil), so we are planning to leave them in place over winter.

In among the peas and broad beans, as well as over the new seedbed where the potatoes had been taken out we broadcast an overwintering green manure mix containing:

• Italian Ryegrass - a fast growing hardy grasing grass which will produce a lot of biomass
• Crimson Clover - a quick growing, vigourous annual which fixes nitrogen and will attracts bees in the spring
• Winter Vetch - a hardy nitrogen fixing forage plant

This combination of green manures is know as the "Landsberger Mix" and is promoted as the ideal overwintering composting crop, producing a lot of organic material, adding nitrogen to the soil and keeping soil and nutrients from washing away with the winter rains, and preparing the soil for next season. The crop will be dug into the soil next spring to compost in place.

Week 38 - Bed EX6

Apart from a few of the plants that have been continuously eaten by caterpillars the plants in this bed are growing well.

The caterpillars continue to regenerate and cause more damage to some plants, especially the Purple Sprouting Broccoli ...

... but a most of the plants are virtually untouched, including the Gortahork Cabbage ...

... the Brussels Sprouts ...

... and the Thousand Headed Kale, which have become very big.

Week 38 - Bed EX5

More chard plants are bolting, and they all need harvesting. It seems that not many people involved with this garden like chard (or know what to do with it).

One of the Cour di Bue Cabbages has formed a head that is firming up and almost ready to harvest ...

... but the one beside it has been attacked by caterpillars and is unlikely to produce anything at this stage. Which came first, the attack by caterpillars or the stunted growth?

The Vertus Savoy cabbage is getting larger and will form a head later in the season to be harvested during winter.

Week 38 - Bed EX3

The parsnip continue to grow ...

... and by scraping away some of the soil we can see that the roots are already quite large. These will continue to grow into the autumn and will be harvested after a few frosts.

We tried to move some of the parsnip foliage aside to give the leeks a chance.

Week 38 - Bed EX2

The plants look healthier now than much of the dust has washed away.

The squash plant continues to grow ...

... but all of the fruit have failed to set.

Beautiful long runner beans blowing in the breeze.

We have been watching this pumpkin grow over the past few weeks ...

... but only noticed the second and third fruit this week, which are the same size as the first but have been hidden by the dense foliage.

The yellow Neckargold Climbing French Beans are small and curved upwards ...

... and the purple Blauhilde variety are larger, more oval in cross section and straighter.

Week 38 - Bed EX1

The plants have become huge, especially the two at the far end of the bed.

There is a lot of new growth on the plants, and some of the older leaves in rough shape, which was probably caused in part by the huge amount of dust from the construction road about 60m away that covered the plants.

The yellow courgette still has not produced any fruit.

The Genovese Courgete plant is continuing to grow ...

... producing a 3 or 4 light mottled green fruit each week.

The Nero di Milano plant is huge and quite tall, with the fruits well hidden.

Week 38 - Bed DD8 Planting

We dug up the remains of the potatoes, added a couple of buckets of well composted horse manure from the neighboring farm and prepared a fine seedbed into which we sowed two rows each of:

• Rainbow Chard - various coloured stems and leaves, baby leaves can be used for salads and cooked when fully grown
• Perpetual Spinach (Leaf Beet) - a beet variety with leaves resembling spinach which can provide valuable greens throughout the winter
• Matador (Atlanta) Spinach - all year round variety with dark green leaves
• Corn Salad D'Orlando - a hardy annual, small nutty leaves, large leaved variety with glossy green leaves
• Pak Choi - Dark leaves and crispy juicy white stems, a salad crop which can be stir fried
• Rucola Coltivata Rocket/Arugula - a refined variety with rich dark leaves and wonderful spicy taste
• Mizuna - a hardy vigorous oriental green leaf with serrated dark green leaves with a mild, slightly mustard flavour
• Endive Pancelerie (only 1/2 row planted, the rest filled in with mizuna) - bulky head variety with dark green serrated outer leaves with white hearts, similar to lettuce though slightly bitter
• All Year Round Lettuce - a pale green compact butterhead variety

As the cold weather arrives, this bed will be covered with a mini polytunnel stretched over wire hoops. In the protected environment, this bed will produce a variety of fresh greens all through the winter and into the spring.

Week 38 - Bed DD7 Planting

We dug up the last of the potatoes out of this bed, which were still in good condition. We cleared all of the weeds and created a seedbed across the entire planting area, including under the peas, into which we sowed:

• White Clover - a low lying nitrogen fixing crop that is suitable for undersowing

The clover will grow where there is space and light for the next few months and wen the peas are finished and pulled up, the clover will continue to grow slowly throughout the winter. If the weather is reasonable, the clover will fill the bed and can remain until we are ready to sow into the bed next spring, at which time it can be dug in as a composting crop, adding fertility to the soil, including lots of nitrogen.



The peas continue to grow ...

... and produce new pods each week.