Week 19 - Bed DD6 Planting

At some point over the last week, a large animal (possibly a calf from the neighboring farm) walked across several of the beds in the allotments, including this one, leaving depressions and gaps in the grid planting of the bed. There are also spaces where some of the beetroot seeds failed to germinate. We leveled some of the parts of the bed and re-sowed the two varieties of beetroot. The 4 week gap between this and the original planting will definitely show later in the season, but given enough space these later plants will still produce roots.

Week 19 - Bed DD5 Planting

This bed was double dug this week, incorporating some chopped sod between the two soil layers, and into it we planted a variety of fast growing crops (listed from north to south):

• Sugar Loaf (Pain de Sucre) Chicory (30 stations covering 20% of the bed) - a large leafy self blanching variety, excellent winter salad crop with a bitter taste
• Matador (Atlanta) Spinach (15 stations covering 20% of the bed) - an all year round variety with dark green leaves
• Rucola Coltivata Rocket/Arugula (25 stations covering 20% of the bed) - a refined variety with rich dark leaves and wonderful spicy taste
• Larno Kohl Rabi (20 stations covering 25% of the bed) - a pale green variety with swollen edible stems, which can be grown outside from spring to autumn
• Mooli Minowase Radish (25 stations covering 15% of the bed) - a long large crisp tender white radish variety with a sweet mild flavour, which is very quick growing

All of these crops will do well if we get cooler conditions with more rain than we have had recently.

Week 19 - Bed EX6 Planting

In the remaining space at the north end of the brassica and leek seedbed, we sowed:

• Rocket/Arugula Rucola Coltivata (2 short rows) - a superior form of this popular salad crop with rich dark leaves with wonderful spicy taste
• Matador Spinach (2 short rows) - all year round variety with dark green leaves

April Weather

April was unusually dry and settled, weather that we would normally get in May and June! Met Éireann called it the "Warmest and sunniest April on record; dry for most of the month!"

Less than 22mm or rain fell in the area during the entire month, about 40% of what we would expect. The mean temperature was 11 degrees C, more than 3 degrees above average and the mean soil temperature was 13.3 degrees C, 4 degrees above normal. The total amount of solar radiation for the month (intensity of energy from the sun including overcast days) was at least 20% higher than normal (47390 Joules/sqcm) which is almost as much sun as we would expect in June!

These conditions were great for the mood of gardeners, but not great for the allotment plots as we didn't have enough rain and we have yet to get any access to water! As a result, the germination and growth of many seedlings was slow or non-existent. The soil became exceptionally dry throughout the month, which is very unusual for this time of the year.

The weather was generally warm but we did have frost conditions at several times throughout the month. Although frost tender potatoes had been planted in the last week of March, they had not sprouted enough to show any damage early in the month and the frost conditions on the 26th did not seem to affect the allotments. The cool conditions probably delayed some of the growth and germination early in the month, adding to the slow growth due to the lack of water.

These two graphs show the exceptionally dry and sunny conditions throughout most of April. We did not receive any rain at all until the 22nd and the 24th was the first time in more that a month that we got more than a drizzle!

Week 18 - Bed EX8 Planting

The broad beans that were sown in this bed have sprouted, but the rooks (large crow) have eaten quite a number of the seeds by carefully tugging on the emerging leaves until the seed comes out of the ground. They seem to love the plump seed and leave the rest of the plant on the ground as a sign of their ingenuity! So we resowed more than half of the broad bean seeds with the same variety and surrounded the bed with a branches to keep the birds out.

Week 18 - Bed PC7 Planting

In among the potatoes that were planted in this bed 3 weeks ago we sowed:

• Bastion Dwarf Peas (approx 60 seeds) - a mid season main crop variety, with a high yield and up to 10 very sweet peas per pod
• Hangdown Green Broad Beans (approx 30 seeds) - a Longpod variety which is the best type for hardiness and early cropping with high yields

The peas were planted in clumps of 6-10 seeds and the broad beans were planted in left over spaces.

Week 18 - Bed EX7 Planting

The broad beans that were sown in this bed have sprouted, but the rooks (large crow) have eaten quite a number of the seeds by carefully tugging on the emerging leaves until the seed comes out of the ground. They seem to love the plump seed and leave the rest of the plant on the ground as a sign of their ingenuity! So we resowed about half of the broad bean seeds with the same variety.

Week 18 - Bed PC8 Planting

We sowed some more seeds of the same variety of peas and broad beans as we had run out of seed when when we first planted this bed.

• Meteor Dwarf Peas (40 seeds) - an early hardy variety ideal for both autumn and spring sowing, grows to 35cm high
• Express Broad beans (12 seeds ) - a fast maturing longpod variety growing 60cm tall

Week 18 - Bed EX6 Planting

This bed was prepared the previous week and we used the southern section of the bed as the brassica seedbed for all of the plots. We sowed one short row each of (listed from north to south):

• Vertus Savoy Cabbage - medium late variety with round flattish heads, medium green, well curled and frost hardy
• Waltman Calabrese Broccoli - autumn maturing, with a small central head followed by large number of side shoots
• Cour di Bue Summer Cabbage - large pointed heart variety, maturing in early autumn, light green in colour
• Red Drumhead (Cabeza) Cabbage - large, solid, ball shaped, deep red variety to harvest from summer to autumn
• Holland Late Winter Cabbage - large, white, solid, hardy variety
• Gortahork Cabbage Winter - large drumhead landrace variety form Co. Donegal, which grows up to football size and is very hardy
• Darkmar 21 Brussels Sprouts - a early variety producing large, dark green sprouts in Oct-Dec
• Balbriggan Brussels Sprouts - an Irish landrace variety, 1m tall producing large sprouts with no bitterness
• Pacifica Calabrese/Broccoli - green variety producing a small central head followed by side shoots in late summer to autumn
• Red Spear Sprouting Broccoli - a high yield early variety, harvest from mid Feb with many side shoots
• Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli - early variety producing many purple spears from early March
• Thousand Headded Kale - a tough, extremely vigorous variety growing up to 1.2m
• Pentland Brig Kale - a very frost hardy and heavy cropping leafy winter veg with a distinct flavour, with leafy side shoots and spears like broccoli

To the north of the brassica seedbed, we planted 6 rows of leeks which will also be transplanted into other beds in the summer:

• Lancia Leek (1 row - south) - a productive variety which can be harvested from mid July to Oct
• Wintercrop Leek (2 rows) - a late, hardy variety that stands well until April, with large stems and dark green leaves
• Monstruoso di Carentan (3 rows - north) an early variety that can be harvested from Oct to Jan.

Week 16 - Bed PC6 Planting

This bed was prepared by removing the top layer of sod, digging out a trench of soil to a spade's depth, loosening up the hard pan a bit and removing some of the larger stones and replacing the soil. This is more work than some of the earlier beds in this plot, but we wanted to make sure that the root vegetables could have more room to grow. A fine seedbed was prepared a wide range of seeds were scattered across the whole bed:

• Barbietola di Chioggia Beetroot - a mild-flavoured italian, pink skin variety with white flesh and pink rings
• Storuman Beetroot - fast growing globe beetroot, which can be used as both summer and main-crop
• Rhubarb Chard - rich ruby-red leaf stalks and dark green/purple foliage
• Swiss Chard - dark green leaves with broad white ribs
• Perpetual Spinach -
  
• Matador Spinach -
  
• Sugar Loaf Chicory -
  
• French Breakfast Radish 3 -
  
• Oriental Salad Mix - a seed packed containing a mix of greens including Pak Choi, Salad Rocket, Mizuna, Red Mustard and Russian Red Kale

The seedbed was very lightly raked to cover the seeds, and then lightly pressed with the back of a garden rake to ensure that the seeds are in contact with the soil.