Blaze of glory

 JULY 2021 and here is a garden bursting into life. Cow shit has made a massive difference to growing our veg this year. Tons of well rotted manure went into these beds and just look at them grow. The best trick in gardening is shit.

FEBRUARY 6th

 Finally the rain relented so we could get into the garden. Anticipating the coming freeze we dug up the old rhubarb crowns and have left them on top of the ground to encourage a growth spurt.

Using our new propagators we also took a punt on some early seed sowing of plants that will spend their growing season inside the tunnel. So aubergine, Florence fennel and some lettuce in the trays, some Nero di Toscana went into their own tiny pots to prevent transplantation stress later on. Also thanks to a kind gift we put in some red onions in the edge of the raised bed in the hope of  an early crop.

We also moved the globe artichoke plants into the outdoor bed that is most often in shade from the tunnel, this was after receiving advice that they were struggling from too much sunshine. We will keep you posted if they enjoy their new home, and produce bigger globes.

The broad beans are now peeking out and in the pic you can see some of our bumper oca crop. Otherwise known as oxalisis tuberosa the South American protein vegetable member of the clover family that can also be eaten raw! 

Pumpkin kimchi

 Hello from January. We spent the day clearing weeds from the outdoor beds. It was whilst doing this that we noticed that some of the nine remaining pumpkins hanging in mesh sacks in the polytunnel were showing skin damage. Basically we have still so many stored that they are getting past their best. 

In order to keep them edible I processed one into kimchi following a simple salt receipe on you tube. Here is a photo of the beautiful result.

It's time to plan the planting season so that your beds are all ready for the toddler seedlings. Especially dig the beds in the poly tunnel now, they have sucked all the juice out of last year's roots and need to be fed and ready for early crops like broad beans.

One trick with rhubarb is to lift it now and cut with a spade so that each section has a growth bud, then replant each part out deep with loads of compost to get a bumper crop later in the season. 

 

 This is me getting the garlic in on solstice and talk about great timing this is the weather on new years eve

Happy ewes ears to all my subscribers. Hint hint! 

 Forgot to add this harvest photo, apples and walnuts for all in abundance !

Cloches become tea feeders

July 2020: the pumpkins have all been planted outside now and we are using the plastic water container cloches, inverted and dug in, as 'tea' feeders.  Using a dilution of water to tea of 3 to 1. The tea is made of equal quantities of Nettle, Comfrey and Borage (steeped till stinky in an old water butt) which we will feed every other day till the end of August to give the plants maximum support to produce big fruit. Being around all summer will hopefully reap some food rewards for the winter ahead.