The soil in this bed has been carefully cultivated to kill off some weeds and to allow the rain to filter into the beds instead of running off into the paths.
All of the young broad bean plants are doing well and are taking advantage of the recent fair weather.
By far the most productive bed in the plots at this time of year.
New leaves of Pentland Brig Kale continue to sprout...
... we have hardly made a dent in the Thousand Headed kale ...
... and we harvested a substantial crop of secondary shoots from the Purple Sprouting Broccoli.
The only crop doing really well is still the mizuna ...
... which we have been continuously harvesting leaves from.
The remaining leeks continue to grow and some of them have started to produce central flower stalks - one is barely visible in the lower right.
Some of these leeks could have been planted deeper, extending the area of blanched stalk below the leaves.
We harvested about half of the parsnip from this bed so far but none of the leeks.
The spring growth of the parsnips is proceeding quickly and we need to harvest and eat a lot of parsnip in the next few weeks.
The roots seem to have a more fibrous root system than the ones that we pulled up a few months ago. the roots seem to be sending out a new set of roots for the spring growth.
Now that there is more sun and the weather i swarmer, the growth of the cover crop has increased. We will dig this growth into the soil about a month before we want to sow seeds in this bed, to allow the first phase of decomposition to take place.
The grass (and a few weeds) have mostly filled out the bed. We will have to dig in this green manure cover crop about a month before we sow anything into this bed, until after the initial stages of decomposition has taken place. The clover in the path to the right (east) is growing better than that in the path to the left of the bed. This is probably due to the overshadowing bu the remaining brassicas.
After the harsh winter weather, this bed seems surprisingly unchanged. We never got around to clearing out the old beet and chard plants, and the brassicas are not nearly as large and healthy as the same varieties in other beds.
The Thousand Headed kale is such a vigorous variety, that even in the poor conditions of this bed it is quite a large plant.
This bed is just waiting to be cleared up.
Apart from a few very small Swede turnips that we picked (which were reasonable tasting), there is not much else worth scavenging for.
One of the cabbages that we transplanted has bolted - quite an attractive plant.
We have continued to harvest the leeks, biggest ones first.
The leaves are a bit tattered from the harsh weather over the winter, but the plants seem to be growing again now that there is a bit more light and warmth.
The onions have grown through the winter frost, wind and rain. A lot of the plants have produced a their third or fourth leaf and are up to 15cm high. The soil on this bed was not as affected by the heavy rain as some of the others, this might be due to the more extensive cultivation, the rounded shape and/or the incorporation of manure. But the surface should be cultivated - carefully to avoid the roots - to increase the penetration of water and to get rid of the weeds and grass that are starting to form.
The garlic has grown well over the winter months, despite the frosts, wind and heavy rain.
Some of the young garlic plants have been pulled up by birds, but most of them have produced at least 2 leaves. The effect of the heavy rains on the surface of the soil is very visible. The hard rain drops break up the structure of the soil and flood the surface, which produces a hard capping of silt (there is very little clay in this soil) which cracks when dries. This cap will not prevent the garlic from growing but it does reduce the amount of rainwater that can enter the soil and will cause a certain amount of erosion from the beds into the paths. Careful cultivation to break up this cap will also cover the garlic bulbs, many of which are now standing proud of the surface.
This bed is still fairly bare but the clover is starting to grow now that the weather is starting to warm up a bit.
The Brussels Sprout plants in the foreground have not grown very big this season, and we missed harvesting many of the sprouts at their prime.
We cultivated the soil around the garlic plants to kill off the weeds that were starting and to allow the rain to penetrate into the soil instead of running off the bed.
The cover crop of grass continues to grow. It does not really matter if this is from the cover crop that we sowed a few months earlier, or from seeds within the soil, as they will both do the same job of preventing nutrients from leaching away in the heavy rains providing additional carbon to be dug into the soil later in the spring.
The ryegrass cover crop continues to grow and will be dug int to ad fertility later in the spring. The north end of the bed is empty because the cover crop failed to sprout under the remains of the peas and broad beans.
We left the remains of the harvested cabbage plant in the garden, hoping that this tall plant will produce a number of smaller heads.
The Purple Sprouting Broccoli at the south end of the bed has produced a central flower bud that is quite wide and segmented (though barely visible in this blurry photo). This might be due to damage caused by caterpillars earlier in the season.
Another broccoli plant has produced a more typical central bud.
After tidying up this bed there are only 3 cabbage plants left, and only two of them are going to produce a head of cabbage.
The one cabbage plant is starting to produce small but tasty flower shoots.
The chard plants had a lot of old torn and rotting leaves removed to reveal a younger heart of leaves that are in much better condition - it is a shame that no one in the group seems to like chard.
We carefully cultivated the soil surface to break up the hard capping that had formed through the heavy rain and the abrasive action of fleece being blown around by the wind.
The extent of the growth of this sacrificed pea seedling after 14 weeks can be seen in this (blurry) photo. The plant is being held at the soil level. The damage to the leaves can also be seen.
The section of the bed in the foreground is missing some garlic and a few onions, probably due to curious or hungry birds pulling them up.
The onions have started to produce the third and fourth leaf.
