Feb 2019

The first sunny day in this spring found me free from paid work, so....I was able to spend the whole of it weeding the fruit cage #finally. Now all I have to do is stitch the holes in the nets before the berries come.

 In the polytunnel the greens are trying to flower so I'm eating all the potential flower heads to keep them young.

 Spring exploded into weeds so I spent today using the hoe and putting the bucket fills of weeds into the potatoes tyres, I may live to regret it if they stay alive but for now they are covering up the first potato shoots and making them push up to the light

Meanwhile in the mountains all the beds have new basket work and I'm happy with the view

Many times it feels as though Brassica family plants are all work and no pay, but today on a frigid March morning when the hungry gap is happening they make a blooming marvellous breakfast!

Using leaf litter

I've gathered all the leaves into the paths around my beds in order to create warmth enough to encourage worms to eat and cast beautifully crumbly soil on the ground all through the winter months.
I'm also hoping it suppresses weeds although even if it doesn't the soil will be loose and easy to work in spring when I will move it onto the beds.
This is the cycle of digging the paths to craft depth and adding the dig to the beds to build height so that as I age the bending should become less.
That's the theory which seems to be working slowly but surely x

Any more straw? June 2015

This year a wintery spring took us a long time to shake off, even two nights ago on the Sunday 7th June we had a ground frost which I'm worried has taken out my planted out two weeks ago courgette plants. Luckily I had been forced to over invest in a huge straw bale because small ones are getting more difficult and expensive to obtain so the little plantlings were strawly protected.

Since 2012 i have been growing my Globe artichokes from seed and this year I'm being treated to a magnificently regal set of heads. I have also been told that these cost quids in the shop as I only spent three hundred pounds and four hundred hours of hard graft to get these couple of cuties on the go I call that a bargain.

The rabbit proof fence is also finally filled with stones, dug from excavating the path between the beds and runs all the way around my plot, although it will need weeding and the grass trimming to keep it looking good.

Inside the polytunnel some of the more fussy seedlings like coriander and aubergines are finally putting in an appearance and getting looked after by Fertiliza the goddess of my corner of the space, busy working her spells.

So with everything nearly in the ground and covered with straw to keep the moisture from escaping and the weeds from taking over, I feel like we are all ready for the majik of plants to simmer sunlight into food.

Clever planet x

OCA

LIVING IN CLOVER

so here's a part of the Oca harvest for this year.  A good year for swelling the tubers although nothing seems to stop this tuber once she has got hold of soil.  (maybe the mice, so not such a good crop to put in a soil clamp)  a tasty potato that stores excellantly and can be eaten raw or roast or boiled with an embedded hint of lemon to the natural flavour.  

growing tip: wait till all the top plants are dead on the ground before harvesting xxx

as reliable as a bean early summer 2014

The flowers are preparing their petals for romance with the bees.

The beds in the veg garden are finally relatively free of slug habitat thanks to a winter regime of ten minutes a day weeding and the food plants are going in as well as coming up.