Week 46 - Bed EX2 Planting

We cleared all of the dying plants off of this bed to prepare it for planting overwintering onions and garlic.
This bed was originally dug less than 6 months ago as a rough lazy bed by turning over the sod and loosing up the surface without adding any additional fertility. A very quick method of starting a garden, but not the best for the first planting. This time double dug this bed and removed a number of large stones and many smaller ones that had formed a hard pan about 25cm below the surface. This would have prevented the roots from easily reaching deep in the soil and restricted the availability of nutrients and water, reducing the yield and possibly stressing the plant during droughts. The original sod was mostly decomposed, but remnants of the roots still remained.
We mixed in approximately 60L of well rotted horse manure and created a relatively smooth seedbed into which we sowed one long row each of:

• Messidrome Garlic - a large overwintering garlic variety, with regular bulbs that are pink or pink marked.
• Red Onion Sets - overwintering bulb onion (not sure which variety).
• Senshyu Onion Set - a Japanese overwintering variety, semi flat shaped with yellow/brown skins which mature in late June.

Week 45 - Bed EX4 Planting

Nine weeks after sowing the winter crop of carrots, we have given up on them. We raked the bed, removing the few straggling carrots and weeds and prepared two long trenches into which we sowed:

• Douce Provence Pea (.5 long double row) - hardy round seeded traditional French pea, can sow Oct/Nov for overwinter crop, excellent crop of tender podding peas on plants 1M high
  
• Meteor Dwarf Pea (1.5 long double rows) - an early hardy variety ideal for both autumn and spring sowing, grows to 35cm high

Before covering the seeds we added soil from another garden where peas had been grown this past year, in an attempt to inoculate the soil with nitrogen fixing bacteria. Both of these pea varieties are hardy and can can be sown in the autumn for harvesting earlier in the spring. The site might be too harsh for these peas but it is worth the experiment, and it will enable the inoculation of the soil with the nitrogen fixing bacteria.

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 36 - Bed EX4 Planting

We dug up this bed, prepared a fine seedbed and sowed:

• Nantes II Carrots (2 long rows) - an early, small cored, medium length, blunt variety
• Amsterdam Forcing III Carrot (2 long rows) - a quick to mature variety with small cylindrical roots with a rich deep orange red colour and almost no core

The bed was covered with a fleece, to help germination and to shelter the seedlings from the autumn winds. In a few months, the bed will be covered with a mini polytunnel made from plastic stretched over a frame of curved wire supports. These carrots will continue to grow until the onset of very cold weather and will remain tender and sweet throughout the winter months.

Week 33 - Bed EX6 Planting

We removed most of the brassica plants and transplanted some back into the bed at a wider spacing. There are still a few rows of leeks remaining, they will be transplanted as soon as we dig another bed for them. Into the empty space of the bed we transplanted three large plants each of:

• Thousand Headded Kale - a tough, extremely vigorous variety growing up to 1.2m
• Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli - early variety producing many purple spears from early March
• Darkmar 21 Brussels Sprouts - a early variety producing large, dark green sprouts in Oct-Dec
• Gortahork Cabbage Winter - large drumhead landrace variety form Co. Donegal, which grows up to football size and is very hardy

There are still a few plants in the south end of the bed and we will try to find somewhere to transplant them. We are going to leave one of the Purple Sprouting Broccoli Plants where it originally grew as it is too big to transplant, it will be interesting to see how it compares to the ones that were transplanted.


The crinkled leaves and stark white leaf structure of the recently transplanted Gortahork cabbage is very striking.

The Thousand Headed Kale plants are wilting a bit after transplanting, which is to be expected when transplanting, especially plants this big.

Week 33 - Bed EX5 Planting

We finally harvested the remainder of the beetroot, some of which had become quite large, but remained fairly tasty and sweet. Several of the cabbages were doing very poorly from being crowded for too long by the mature beetroot. Although the larger beetroot plants would have sheltered the new transplants until they got established, we should have removed all of the beetroot within a few weeks, at the most, as the recently transplanted cabbage roots were not able to compete with the established beetroot.

We pulled out the worst of of the cabbages, and replaced them with healthier plants that had been left in the seedbed, even though these were quite large for transplanting. We ended up with 4 Vertus Savoy Cabbages and 4 Cour di Bue Summer Cabbages.



The chard is doing well, but needs to be harvested. We probably planted too much.

Week 33 - Bed EX3 Planting

The parsnip is growing well and filling out the bed and the carrots have been mostly harvested. This was to be a winter crop of carrots, but there have been too many people eager to pull one up to eat.


Although the carrots are not completely harvested, into the empty spaces in the row we transplanted:

• Wintercrop Leek (about 20 plants) - a late, hardy variety that stands well until April, with large stems and dark green leaves

We will probably finish off the carrots in a few weeks, but we were anxious to move the leeks out of the overcrowded seedbed and transplanting them now will get them established early.

Week 26 - Bed EX6 Planting

We pulled up all of the arugula which was badly eaten by flee beetle and the spinach which was bolting and replaced it with:

• Magres Swede (several seeds at 16 stations) - a purple top variety, with firm yellow flesh, medium size, stores well

Week 26 - Bed EX5 Planting

We harvested some beets this week, from both of the varieties. Both the roots and the leaves will be eaten. In the space between the two rows of beets we transplanted from bed DD6:

• Vertus Savoy Cabbage (5 plants at the north end) - medium late variety with round flattish heads, medium green, well curled and frost hardy
• Cour di Bue Summer Cabbage (3 plants at the south end) - large pointed heart variety, maturing in early autumn, light green in colour

Although the plants are crowded at the moment, next week we will be harvesting the beetroot from around the cabbage transplants, and within a month or so, all of the beets will be harvested from both rows, leaving plenty of space for the cabbage plants to grow to maturity.

We could have waited for more of the beetroot to be harvested before transplanting, but the brassica seedbed is getting really crowded, and by planting in among the beetroot, the plants will gradually get more space, which will be a smoother transition than going from a crowded bed to being transplanted into an open wind swept bed.

Week 24 - Bed EX2 Planting

The beans in this bed have sprouted and this week we added two plants:

• Blue Ballet Squash (5 week old plant in a pot) - a soft blue-grey skined variety with sweet orange flesh fruits up to 2kg.
• Connecticut Field Pumpkin (5 week old plant in a pot) - a large trailing variety with bright orange oval fruit up to 10kg.

The Blue Ballet Squash was transplanted into the empty area to the south of the bed, and the Connecticut Field Pumpkin was transplanted into the space in the middle of the climbing french bean 'tipi'.

Week 21 - Bed EX3 Planting

This bed was dug and worked down into a fine seedbed into which we sowed:

• Halblange White Parsnip (2 long rows) - a thick, pointed, half length root variety, which does well in shallower soils
• Danvers Half Long Carrot (south 1/3 of a long row) - a broad shouldered, short, maincrop variety
• Chantenay Red Cored Carrot (middle 1/3 of a long row) - an early maincrop variety with smooth stump roots, fine taste and texture
• Autumn King Carrot (north 1/3 of a long row) - a thick pointed half length maincrop variety which does well in shallower soils and is frost hardy

Week 21 - Bed EX2 Planting

We finished preparing this bed as a rough lazy-bed (not worked down to a fine seedbed) and sowed:

• Neckargold Climbing French Bean (2 seeds at 12 stations) - high yield medium-late variety, with long round yellow beans.
• Blauhilde Climbing French Bean (2 seeds at 10 stations) - maincrop variety with long oval purple pods.
• White Emergo Runner Bean (22 seeds) - an attractive and vigorous variety with white seed and flower.

The two varieties of climbing french beans were planted in a circle at the base of a 'tipi' of long tree branches. String will need to be added (tied at the top and to a stake at the ground) to make sure that each of the plants has a support to climb up.
The runner bean seeds were also planted in a circle, in the center of which a dead tree was planted. The top branches of the tree were trimmed and rocks were piled up around the base to help stabilize it. Lengths of twine will be tied to the branches of the tree and then to stakes driven into the ground beside each seedling, so that the plants have something to climb.

Week 21 - Bed EX1 Planting

We prepared this bed as a rough lazy-bed and created 4 small mounds onto which we sowed:

• Nero di Milano Courgette (1 station of 4 seeds) - a dark green variety with lightly mottled fruits
• Genovese Courgette (1 station of 4 seeds) - a pale, early variety with fine lightly mottled green fruit
• Yellow Straightneck Courgette (2 stations of 4 seeds each) - an early maturing yellow variety with smooth yellow fruits

The raised hills were used to warm the soil to help germination. All but the strongest seedling will be removed to leave 4 plants with lots of room in the bed.

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

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 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 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 15 - Bed EX7 Planting

We cultivated this bed as a fairly rough lazy-bed and planted:

• Maris Peer Potato (south 1/2 of bed) - a second early (or early maincrop) variety with cream skin and creamy yellow floury flesh
• Hangdown Green Broad Bean (1/2 long double row) - a vigorous early longpod variety
• Ambrosia Sugar Snap Peas (1/2 long double row) - early fairly tall growing, sweet variety with edible parchment free pod

Week 15 - Bed EX5 Planting

We finished cultivating this lazy-bed down to a fine seedbed and sowed 3 long rows

• Rhubarb Chard (south 1/2 of long row) - rich ruby-red leaf stalks and dark green/purple foliage
• Swiss Chard (north 1/2 of long row) - dark green leaves with broad white ribs
• Barbietola di Chioggia Beetroot (1 long row) - a mild-flavoured italian, pink skin variety with white flesh and pink rings
• Storuman Beetroot (1 long row) - fast growing globe beetroot, which can be used as both summer and main-crop

Week 15 - Bed EX4 Planting

We finished cultivating this lazy-bed down to a fine seedbed and sowed 4 long rows:

• Printanor Garlic (south 1/2 long row of cloves) - spring planting variety with cream coloured cloves harvested in the autumn.
• Red Sun Shallots (north 1/2 long row of bulbs) - mild flavoured red variety, ideal for salads and stores well.
• Sturon Onion (one long row of sets) - golden bulb variety with fine flavour and good storability.
• Guardsman Scallions (one long row of seeds) - very strong upright salad onion variety, especially suitable for autumn crop.
• Nantes II Carrots (one long row of seeds) - an early, small cored, medium length, blunt variety.