Week 52+24 - Bed DD6

Week 52+21 - Bed DD6

Week 52+7 - Bed DD6

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.

Week 52+5 - Bed DD6

The plants in this bed have weathered the hard winter well.

No one has harvested any of the sprouts, and the oldest ones at the bottom of the plant have started to open up and are past their prime. The newer sprouts higher up the plant are ready to eat.

Once some of the older outer leaves were removed the Siwss Chard plants look well with the tender younger leaves providing welcome fresh greens in the late January diet.

Week 49 - Bed DD6

The remaining Rhubarb Chard plants have been pulled out, as have the red cabbage plants which had not grown well at all this season. The Swiss Chard and the Brussels Sprouts plants continue to grow reasonably well.

Week 40 - Bed DD6

The Rhubarb chard continue to bolt, the red cabbage struggles along and the Brussels sprouts are growing well.

The small buds at the leaf joint are starting to form, and will eventually grow into Brussels Sprouts for the winter.

The top two plants are doing well, but the other two are not nearly as big.

None of the red cabbage look like they have grown big enough to produce any reasonable crop.

The Swiss Chard continues to grow and is in need of harvesting.

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 36 - Bed DD6

The Brussels sprout plants have continued to grow since being transplanted ...

... but the red cabbage do not seem to have grown much at all.

Week 35 - Bed DD6

We cleared the bed of the remaining beetroot over the past 2 weeks, to provide space for the cabbage and Brussels sprout transplants.

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 31 - Bed DD6

Week 25 - Bed DD6

The lush green foliage of two kinds of beetroot, traditional red to the left and pink/white ringed to the right.

We thinned the beetroot, and ended up with a substantial meal of steamed beet greens!

The chard in this bed are doing well, but two of the Rhubarb Chard plants have bolted, producing an extended flower stalk instead of each of the leaves starting from the crown of the root.

Week 24 - Bed DD6

Nine weeks after sowing, the beetroot and chard in this bed are growing well, except in the lower left corner of the photo for some reason.

Some of the Storuman Beetroot are growing very quickly, while other are more more stunted. This is likely due to the lack of thinning, especially in the case of the clump of seedlings in the lower left of the photo. In situations where levels of soil moisture low plants need more space to find the water that they need, and we have had a very dry spring.

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 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.