Week 52+24 - Bed DD8 planting

Week 52+24 - Bed DD7 planting

Week 49 - Bed DD4

We cultivated this bed to remove the few struggling seedlings and weeds and sowed two long rows of:

• Aquadulce Claudia Broad Beans (two double staggered rows, 48 seeds) - an excellent autumn sowing variety which establishes itself very quickly and will produce a very early crop. It is white seeded with pods up to 23 cm long.

Before covering the seeds we added soil from another garden where peas and beans had grown earlier in the year, in an attempt to introduce nitrogen fixing bacteria which we have found to be absent from the plot.

Week 45 - Bed DD2 Planting

We double dug the bed and added 100L of well rotted horse manure to the lower level of the bed. This will help to build up fertility through the full depth of the bed, but this bed should be top dressed with more in the spring. Into this bed we planted:

• Messidrome Garlic (22 rows of 6 cloves = 132 cloves) - a large overwintering garlic variety, with regular bulbs that are pink or pink marked.
  

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.

Week 38 - Bed DD6 Planting

We sowed a cover crop underneath the brassicas:

• 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 when the brassicas are harvested (or pulled up because they are not growing well), 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.






Six weeks after transplanting the red cabbages in the middle of the bed remain stunted., the Brussels sprouts are growing well ...

... though not as tall as we would expect at this time of year, probably due to the delay in transplanting.

Some more of the Rhubarb Chard plants are bolting . I am not sure what is causing this variety of chard to go to seed over such a long period of time. None of the Swiss Chard variety have bolted.

Week 38 - Bed DD4 Planting

We cleared the bed of any remaining weeds and onions, lightly dug the soil and prepared a fine seedbed. The bed was divided into 5 equal sections and broadcast sowed:

• Amsterdam Forcing 3 Carrot - an early variety that is very quick to mature, small cylindrical roots with a rich deep orange red colour and almost no core
• Jeanette F1 Carrot - an early maturing Nantes type variety with smooth conical roots and vigorous foliage making pulling easier
• Boro F1 Beetroot - a hybrid variety with deep red internal colour, fine texture and taste
• Nantes II Carrots - an early, small cored, medium length, blunt variety
• Guardsman Scallions - very strong upright salad onion variety, especially suitable for autumn crop.

There were only a limited quantity of some of the carrot seeds, but we are planning to thin the beds quite thoroughly so that each plant has the space to grow quickly.

We covered the bed with fleece, and later in the season, we will be building a small polytunnel out of bent wire and a sheet of plastic, which will cover the entire bed. This protection and added warmth will help the plants to continue growing into the winter, and will hopefully provide us with tender sweet carrots, beetroot and onions through the winter.

Week 33 - Bed DD6 Planting

We have not yet harvested all of the beetroot, but we needed to transplant some of the brassica plants into this bed, so we decided to transplant them into small cleared sections of the bed instead of waiting until everything was cleared:

• Red Drumhead Cabbage (6 transplants) - large, solid, ball shaped, deep red variety to harvest from summer to autumn
• Balbriggan Brussels Sprouts (4 transplants) - an Irish landrace variety, 1m tall producing large sprouts with no bitterness

While the new transplants might benefit for a week or so from the shelter provided by the surrounding beetroot, we will need to clear the bed of the competing roots fairly quickly.




Bed before clearing areas and transplanting the brassica plants.

The red cabbage ...

.... and the Brussles Sprouts just after transplanting.

Week 33 - Bed DD3 Planting

We gave up on everything that was sown in this bed - except for the borage and leeks - we even pulled up the one lone carrot seedling, and transplanted the rest of the bed with some more leeks:

• Monstruoso di Carentan (52 transplants) - an early variety that can be harvested from Oct to Jan.

24 of the leeks were transplanted north of the borage beside the existing Lancia Leeks, but these will likely be heavily overshadowed as the borage continues to grow. We are transplanting these leeks quite late, hopefully they will get enough time to grow to a reasonable size by the end of the season.





The newly transplanted leeks started to wilt fairly quickly, even though they were watered in.

When transplanting the leeks were placed at the bottom of a 15cm deep hole. The soil will gradually fill in the hole, creating a longer blanched white section on each plant. Creating this forced base to the plants is one of the main reasons for transplanting leeks.

The holes that the Lancia leeks were planted into have filled in.

Week 27 - Bed DD2 Planting

This bed was double dug and we erected a line of frames in a 'X' shape, which was cross-braced with twine. At the base of the each cane we sowed:

• Enorma Runner Bean (2 seeds each at 8 canes) - a heavy cropping variety with long smooth, stringless pods and red flowers.
• White Emergo Runner Bean (2 seeds each at 8 canes) - a vigorous variety with white seeds and flowers, lovely taste and texture.

At the south end of the bed we planted 4 stations with 3 courgette seeds each, including:

• Nero di Milano Courgette - a dark green lightly mottled variety.
• Genovese Courgette - a pale, early variety with fine lightly mottled green fruit
• Yellow Straightneck Courgette - an early maturing yellow variety with smooth yellow fruits.
• White Volunteer Courgette - an old open pollinated variety, with many short fat pale green fruit.

The canes for the runner beans were constructed in an 'X' shape so that when the plants grew to full height most of the beans would hang out towards the path instead of being hidden within the frame.

Week 26 - Bed DD7 Planting

Less than half of the peas that we sowed have sprouted, possibly due to poor seed quality or the dry weather when they were sowed 6 weeks ago, so we filled in the gaps with additional seed of the same variety. These will likely mature later but will extend the harvest.

















We earthed up the potatoes and constructed a structure out of sticks and twine for the peas to climb up.

Week 26 - Bed DD3 Planting

This bed was double dug last week and into northern third of the bed we transplanted:

• Lancia Leek (24 plants) - a productive variety which can be harvested from mid July to Oct

The leeks were transplanted from bed EX6, and placed into the bottom of holes which will gradually fill with soil, extending the length of blanched white shaft.


The rest of the bed was raked into a fine seedbed and in short drills across the bed we sowed (listed from north to south):

• Romanesco Fennel (1 short row) - late cropping variety with large round bulbs
• Flat Leaf Parsley (1 short row) - a continental type of parsley with large green tasty flat leaves
• Tetra Dill (1 short row) - a pretty culinary herb with feathery foliage and aniseed flavour
• Borage (1 short row) - beautiful blue flowered bee plant with edible flowers, young leaves can also be used
• Sweet Genovese Basil (1 short row) - a very aromatic large leaf variety
• Saint Valery Carrot (4.5 short rows) - a French heirloom variety with smooth thick roots and sweet, tender flesh
• Danvers Half Long Carrot (3.5 short rows) - a broad shouldered, short, maincrop variety

We will need a warm summer for the basil to do well, and the borage was planted primarily to attract bees.

Week 24 - Bed DD1 Planting

This bed was prepared last week and in the north end we planted 2 courgette plants:

• Genovese Courgette (one 5 week old transplant from pot) - a pale, early variety with fine lightly mottled green fruit
• White Volunteer Courgette (one 5 week old transplant from pot) - an old open pollinated variety, with many short fat pale green fruit

Newly transplanted courgettes at the far (north) end of the bed.

Two week old sweetcorn beginning to emerge.

Week 22 - Bed DD1 Planting

We prepared this bed by double digging this week and sowed:

• True Gold Sweetcorn (27 stations with 3 seeds each) - a heirloom variety with golden yellow kernels and rich buttery flavour, which will grow to 180cm tall and mature in September

Week 20 - Bed DD7 Planting

We finished double digging this bed and sowed:

• Bastion Dwarf Peas (approx 160 seeds in a double long row) - a mid season main crop variety, with a high yield and up to 10 very sweet peas per pod
• Record Maincrop Potatoes (13 seed potatoes in one long row) - an oval potato variety with mealy yellow flesh

The peas will need a structure of chicken wire or similar for support.

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 16 - Bed DD8 Planting

We double-dug this bed and planted:

• Orla Potatoes (36 seed potatoes) - a 1st early variety with creamy white oval tubers with light yellow flesh

These were planted in 3 rows of 12 down the length of the bed and because they are so close together the rows will need to be mulched instead of being earthed to prevent the tubers becoming green.

Week 15 - Bed DD6 Planting

We finished cultivating this double dug bed down to a fine seedbed and sowed (listed from north to south):

• Swiss Chard (grid of stations covering 20% of bed) - dark green leaved variety with broad white ribs
• Rhubarb Chard (grid of stations covering 20% of bed) - rich ruby-red leaf stalks and dark green/purple foliage
• Barbietola di Chioggia Beetroot (grid of stations covering 25% of bed) - a mild-flavoured italian, pink skin variety with white flesh and pink rings
• Storuman Beetroot (grid of stations covering 35% of bed) - a fast growing globe variety, which can be used as both summer and main-crop

These are the same varieties as were planted on the same day in long rows in bed EX5, rather than in a grid covering the whole of this bed.

Week 15 - Bed DD4 Planting

This bed was prepared by double digging with some of the sod being chopped up and placed between the two layers of soil for extra fertility. In this bed we planted (from south to north):

• Red Sun Shallots (12 bulbs covering 20% of bed) - mild flavoured red variety, ideal for salads and stores well
• Printanor Garlic (40 cloves covering 20% of bed) - spring planting variety with cream coloured cloves harvested in the autumn
• Sturon Onion (120 sets covering 60% of bed) - a golden bulb variety with fine flavour and good storability