Week 52+24 - Bed PC4

Week 52+21 - Bed PC4

Week 52+5 - Bed PC4

We finally cleared everything out of the bed, and very little of it was worth taking home. We have started to double dig this bed, removing quite a bit of rock, and will add a lot of fertility before planting anything else. We are able to work with this sandy soil almost any time of the year without worrying about ruining the structure, instead of having to wait until the soil dries up, as is the case with less free draining soil.

Week 49 - Bed PC4

Most of what we have harvested recently from this bed is stunted and poor tasting. It hasn't been getting much attention, except as the subject of lessons on how to make this type of gardening more productive.

Week 47 - Bed PC4

The few dill plants have gone to seed and the carrots are struggling, but the parsnip seems to be growing well and are now dominating the bed.

Week 40 - Bed PC4

Despite the lack of growth, there is a great mix of leaf shapes and textures in this bed.

Week 38 - Bed PC4

We pulled all of the remaining lettuce out of this bed and thinned some of the longer growing root crops, but it seems that it is too late in the season for any decent yield. It feels a bit of a waste to be spending additional time in trying to rescue this bed when there is other work to be done that is probably more fruitful.
The plants look reasonably healthy, just not big enough. There is a difference between a small carrot and a stunted carrot - especially in taste.

Week 36 - Bed PC4

We pulled up all of the onions in the bed and most were within the two sizes shown above, which are obviously smaller than the onions harvested out of the other plots. Onions do not do well with competition for nutrients and water, so a polycrop bed is not going to produce substantial yields, especially with the relatively poor growing conditions in this bed. Getting some onions is better than nothing, and it is hard to put a value on additional companion planting benefits that may have occurred. As the fertility of the beds increases, and if we can provide enough water and harvest when the bed becomes over crowded, then onions will do better.

Week 33 - Bed PC4

The plants in this bed, and other parts of this plot, are not thriving. Although we dug this bed more thoroughly than the others, we had removed much of the fertility and organic matter from the soil when we removed the sod. We did not add any fertility or any other soil improver to this bed, and this has been compounded by the lack of rain earlier in the year, the wet cool weather for most of the summer and the fact that we did not harvest quickly enough to make room for other plants.

All of this has left the bed in a poor state where nothing is growing well and what we are harvesting can have a more bitter taste. We have learned a lot from this bed.

Week 31 - Bed PC4

The bed has filled out and is dominated by lettuces ...

... which we have been harvesting but not quickly enough. They need to be thinned and harvested to provide space for the other plants.

The onions are growing but are not nearly as large as the ones with more space in the other beds. The lack of additional fertility will also be an issue as onions do not compete well with other plants. This is an issue with this type of planting.

The Scorzonera look healthy ...

... as do some of the lettuce varieties.

The feathery leaves of the dill plant look well mixed in with the other leaves.

The carrots are small. Some of them are delicious and other are fairly bitter. This is likely due to the stunting caused by lack of space, water and nutrients.

Week 25 - Bed PC4

Polycrop mix of carrot (left) feathery leaves of the dill (right), several varieties of lettuce (top and middle) and a small parsnip (lower middle).

The empty spaces of the polycrop bed - caused by uneven sowing and germination and the harvesting of some of the fast growing rocket - will be filled by fennel, herbs and possibly leek transplants.

The long leaf blades of the scorzonera.

Week 24 - Bed PC4

Eight weeks after planting, many of the plants have come up and appear to be doing well.

The lack of rain, and the absence of any facilities to irrigate, have prevented many of the feeds from germinating.

Week 16 - Bed PC4 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 a lot 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:

• Long Black Scorzonera - a heavy yielding, long root with white flesh and black skin
• Autumn King Carrot - a high yield popular maincrop variety with good flavour and storing
  
• Halblange Hamburg Parsley - a variety of parsley grown primarily for its thick, pointed half long parsnip-like roots
• White Gem Parsnip - wedge shaped root variety with smooth white skin
• Tetra Dill - a herb with feathery foliage and aniseed flavour

We also added a number of different lettuces:

• Marvel of Four Seasons Lettuce - red and green butterhead heirloom variety
  
• Aruba Lettuce - a very red, large headed looseleaf variety
• Salad Bowl Lettuce - cut and come again looseleaf lettuce, with long green leaves
  
• Roger Lettuce - red batavia variety
  
• Little Gem Lettuce - dwarf cos variety
  
• Till Lettuce - dense looseleaf variety with arrow shaped leaves
• Thirza Lettuce - a medium size green lettuce with well filled hearts, crops spring, summer, autumn
  
• Brun D'Hiver Lettuce - a heirloom variety dating from 1855, with compact, wrinkled green/red leaves
  
• Alvaro Lettuce - a crisphead variety to harvest from mid may to autumn
  

The seedbed was then lightly raked to cover the seeds and then onion sets were pressed into the bed at random:

• Centurion Onion (approx 30 sets) - early maturing round variety with brown skin suitable for medium term storage