Week 52+24 - Bed EX4

Week 52+21 - Bed EX4

Week 52+7 - Bed EX4

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.

Week 52+5 - Bed EX4

Twelve weeks after sowing, and a fair amount of hard rain and wind, the peas are growing under the protection of the fleece.

But the fleece seems to have caused damage to the young pea leaves, probably mostly due to abrasion caused by wind. A lot fair amount of moss has gown on the surface of the soil under the cover as well. It seems that the fleece may have caused more damage than good.

We dug up one of the pea plants to examine the progression. All of the plant below the first leaf was underground, stretching to a depth of 20 cm. But more importantly nodules have started to form on the roots! It seems we have succeeded in inoculating the soil with beneficial nitrogen fixing bacteria that is specific to peas and beans!

Week 49 - Bed EX4

The fleece has already been damaged, possibly by a dog, but it is still providing some protection.

The peas have sprouted and the first leaves are unfolding (though barely visible in this blurry photo).

Week 47 - Bed EX4

As the weather is getting colder, we decided to cover this bed with a fleece to create warmer conditions for germination and to protect the seedlings from the strong winds and frost in this exposed plot.

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 40 - Bed EX4

The carrots have just started to emerge, a bit slower than expected, but the first few weeks after sowing were quite dry.

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 35 - Bed EX4

We pulled up all of the remaining allium bulbs and set them to dry at the north end of the bed.

The onions (top) are very large, as are the shallots (bottom left) but the garlic harvest was not as good. The total yeild from this bed was smaller than that from bed DD4, though it is hard to compare because different plants were planted.

But this bed did produce larger individual onions, with the largest of them (above) weighing in at .75kg.

Week 33 - Bed EX4

All of the carrots have been eaten, and the onions, shallots and garlic are all beginning to die back. They will be harvested within a few weeks.

Week 31 - Bed EX4

After a month holiday away from the rain and cool weather, we came back to find this bed doing well, apart from needing weeding.

Some of the onions have grown quite large already, despite some slug damage.

The scallions (spring onions) are quite large and need to be eaten.

The shallots have started to form large bulbs, and will be ready for harvest soon.

Week 27 - Bed EX4

12 weeks after sowing the early carrots are needing to be thinned again, but this time they are large enough to eat ...

... and they are delicious!

Week 25 - Bed EX4

Everything in this bed was planted 10 weeks ago.

Early carrots, with ladybug on guard, almost ready to start harvesting - we sampled a few!

Spring Onions (Scallions) ready for harvesting.

Some of the larger bulb onions starting to swell at the base.

Shallots have separated into bulbs - 9 on this plant!

Week 24 - bed EX4

After 9 weeks, all of the plants are up, though some of the onions and garlic plants were pulled up, probably by birds. We replanted those that would survive and planted some more sets in the remaining gaps.

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.