Week 52+18 - Bed PC3 Planting

Finished digging this bed and added 1 barrow of well rotted horse manure. Once the bed was prepared I sowed a brassica seedbed with one row each of the following (listed from North to South):

• Snowball Cauliflower
• Deakin F1 Cauliflower
• Waltham Calabrese
• Pacifica Calabrese
• Darkmar 21 Brussels Sprouts
• Balbriggan Brussels Sprouts
• Vertus Cabbage
• Premier Cabbage
• Marner Lagerret Cabbage
• Holland Late Winter Cabbage
• Gortahork Cabbage
• Dottenfelder Cabbage
• Cour di Bue Cabbage
• Red Spear Sprouting Broccoli
• Purple Sprouting Broccoli Late
• Purple Sprouting Broccoli Early
• Uncle John's Kale
• Thousand Headed Kale
• Red Russian Curled Kale
• Ragged Jack Kale
• Pentland Brig Kale
• Niki's Cut and Come Kale

Week 52+18 - Bed PC2 Planting

In the south 2/3rds of the bed we had planted a mix of overwintering onion setts. Into the spaces I planted additional setts of:

• Red Baron Onion Setts

In the north third portion of the bed we mixed 1/3 barrow of horse manure and into a fine seedbed we sowed a Leek seedbed consisting of one row each of:

• Verdonnet Leek
• Wintercrop Leek
• Monstruoso di Carentan Leek
• Lancia Leek
• Hannibal Autumn Mammoth 2 Leek
• Ardea Leek

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 47 - Bed PC2 Planting

We finished digging the bed (one spade depth) and incorporated 70L of well rotted horse manure. Into the resultant raised bed we planted a scattered mix of:

• 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.

We ran out of sets, but most of the southern 2/3rds off the plot is covered.

Week 47 - Bed PC1 Planting

We cultivted this bed, removing quite a bit of stone from the lower level, but have not yet added any additional fertility. We will need to top dress this bed in the spring. Into the prepared bed we planted:

• Messidrome Garlic - a large overwintering garlic variety, with regular bulbs that are pink or pink marked.

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 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 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 39 - Bed PC8

Cleared out potatoes, dug up the soil and sowed:

• Landsberger Mix

In the paths on the west side of the bed we sowed:

• White Clover

This will form a low growing carpet of cover crop that will fix nitrogen and tolerate a certain amount of walking on.

Week 39 - Bed PC8 Planting

Cleared out potatoes, dug up the soil, and then broadcast sowed a 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.

In the path on west side of the bed we sowed:

• White Clover - a low lying nitrogen fixing crop that is suitable for undersowing

This will form a low growing carpet of cover crop that will fix nitrogen and tolerate a certain amount of walking on.

Week 39 - Bed PC7 Planting

Cleared out potatoes, dug up the soil, and then broadcast sowed a 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.

In the paths on either side of the bed we sowed:

• White Clover - a low lying nitrogen fixing crop that is suitable for undersowing

This will form a low growing carpet of cover crop that will fix nitrogen and tolerate a certain amount of walking on.

Week 38 - Bed DD8 Planting

We dug up the remains of the potatoes, added a couple of buckets of well composted horse manure from the neighboring farm and prepared a fine seedbed into which we sowed two rows each of:

• Rainbow Chard - various coloured stems and leaves, baby leaves can be used for salads and cooked when fully grown
• Perpetual Spinach (Leaf Beet) - a beet variety with leaves resembling spinach which can provide valuable greens throughout the winter
• Matador (Atlanta) Spinach - all year round variety with dark green leaves
• Corn Salad D'Orlando - a hardy annual, small nutty leaves, large leaved variety with glossy green leaves
• Pak Choi - Dark leaves and crispy juicy white stems, a salad crop which can be stir fried
• Rucola Coltivata Rocket/Arugula - a refined variety with rich dark leaves and wonderful spicy taste
• Mizuna - a hardy vigorous oriental green leaf with serrated dark green leaves with a mild, slightly mustard flavour
• Endive Pancelerie (only 1/2 row planted, the rest filled in with mizuna) - bulky head variety with dark green serrated outer leaves with white hearts, similar to lettuce though slightly bitter
• All Year Round Lettuce - a pale green compact butterhead variety

As the cold weather arrives, this bed will be covered with a mini polytunnel stretched over wire hoops. In the protected environment, this bed will produce a variety of fresh greens all through the winter and into the spring.

Week 33 - Bed PC6

Nothing in this bed is thriving, which is not unexpected given the poor soil preparation and the weather.

The swedes are small but growin.

The brassicas are doing fairly well, but the beans (lower left) are struggling.

We transplanted a few more brassicas into the bed to replace ones that we had transplanted earlier which were not doing very well.

Week 33 - Bed PC5

We cleared out a lot of the larger beetroot to eat, the weeds and the other plants that had gone to seed, this makes the bed look more straggly. Into the spaces we transplanted a few brassica plants.

Week 25 - Bed PC6 Planting

After clearing out all of the bolting leaf crops and weeds, brassica transplants and bush beans were planted into the empty spaces:

• Balbriggan Brussels Sprouts (6 transplants) - an Irish landrace variety, 1m tall producing large sprouts with no bitterness.
• Pacifica Calabrese/Broccoli (6 transplants) - green variety producing a small central head followed by side shoots in late summer to autumn.
• Hildora Dwarf French Bean (40+ seeds) - an early maincrop variety with yellow round oval pods of up to 14cm in length.
• Saxa Dwarf French Bean (25+ seeds) - an old variety with early light green round pods, suitable for colder climates.

Brussels Sprout transplant in the center, with a calabrese transplant to the left.

Week 19 - Bed PC5

Dug bed and in prepared seedbed we scattered a polycrop mix of seeds including:

• White Globe Turnip
• Helenor Swede
• Early White Vienna Kohl Rabi
• Cherry Bell Radish
• Minowassi Radish
• Storuman Beetroot
• Rainbow Chard
• Perpetual Spinach
• Chicory
• Spinach
• Mizuna

Week 18 - Bed PC8 Planting

We sowed some more seeds of the same variety of peas and broad beans as we had run out of seed when when we first planted this bed.

• Meteor Dwarf Peas (40 seeds) - an early hardy variety ideal for both autumn and spring sowing, grows to 35cm high
• Express Broad beans (12 seeds ) - a fast maturing longpod variety growing 60cm tall

Week 16 - Bed PC6 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 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:

• Barbietola di Chioggia Beetroot - a mild-flavoured italian, pink skin variety with white flesh and pink rings
• Storuman Beetroot - fast growing globe beetroot, which can be used as both summer and main-crop
• Rhubarb Chard - rich ruby-red leaf stalks and dark green/purple foliage
• Swiss Chard - dark green leaves with broad white ribs
• Perpetual Spinach -
  
• Matador Spinach -
  
• Sugar Loaf Chicory -
  
• French Breakfast Radish 3 -
  
• Oriental Salad Mix - a seed packed containing a mix of greens including Pak Choi, Salad Rocket, Mizuna, Red Mustard and Russian Red Kale

The seedbed was very lightly raked to cover the seeds, and then lightly pressed with the back of a garden rake to ensure that the seeds are in contact with the soil.

Week 15 - Bed PC7 Planting

This bed was prepared last week by cutting the sod off the top and removing it. The soil was then dug to the depth of a spade without going too far into the compacted layer of stones about 25cm down. In this bed we planted two types of potatoes:

• Orla Potatoes (23 chitted sets, north part of bed) - a first early variety with creamy white oval tubers with light yellow flesh
• Maris Peer Potato (17 sets, south part of bed) - a second early (or early maincrop) variety with cream skin and creamy yellow floury flesh

In the next few weeks we will sow bot peas and broad bean seeds, to grow up in among the potatoes as a polycrop.

Week 13 - Bed PC8 Planting

The top inch or two of sod was cut off of this bed and set aside to decompose into a loam for potting with next year. The soil was then dug to a roughly a spade's depth but we did not loosen the compact layer of stone under this layer. This would have taken quite a bit of work and we are interested in seeing how this will compare with the double dug beds.

In this bed we planted:

• Orla Potatoes (15 chitted sets) - a first early variety with creamy white oval tubers with light yellow flesh
• Meteor Dwarf Peas (30 seeds) - an early hardy variety ideal for both autumn and spring sowing, grows to 35cm high
• Express Broad beans (10 seeds ) - a fast maturing longpod variety growing 60cm tall

The potatoes, peas and broad beans were mixed together as a polycrop. This is an experimental bed to see if these plants will grow well together. The peas and the beans will fix nitrogen and the potatoes will provide some support for the climbing peas. We selected early varieties of crop.

The pea seeds were pre-sprouted, which involved soaking seeds and allowing them to sprout indoors. This is useful in the early spring when the cold soil can prevent or slow germination. Unfortunately, the roots had grown too long (they should have been planted a few days earlier) which probably reduced any advantage.

We ran out of broad bean seeds and will have to plant more later, and should sow some more peas as well.