I found some brassica seedlings flourishing in my plastic growhouse at home, hiding behind other plants for the garden. So before going away for the weekend in my caravan, I had to get them into the ground. They are a bit tall but that makes it easier to plant in the holes I normally plant into. As I planted them in spaces in my Brassica tunnel, with a good dose of lime for each plant, I partially filled in each hole thus supporting the stem of each plant. I hope for a late, though probably small, crop of purple sprouting and curly kale. At home I had strung up my onions in tights as normal. Only the best onions get this treatment, anything less than perfect is used asap. Today I planted the last of my shallots.
The red onion sets and the 'Jermor' shallots I planted a week or so ago are already growing away well. The 'Grizelle' shallots have not yet emerged though. The last shallots I planted today are 'Escallotte Grise' (French for 'grey shallots'). If they grow, I hope they will dry out hard so I can dice them finely onto my salads next summer the way my French (farmer's son) friend does. However, he has long hot and dry summers and even the South coast summers may not be enough to get a good crop. As always, I bury my shallots/sets just below the surface and try to make sure nothing actually shows as the birds think they are something tasty and pull them out if the top sticks out of the soil. It seems to work in our light soil even though the advice is to plant so shallow that leaves the tops showing. I then weeded the old sweet corn patch. The weeds have grown so large in the warmth we have had this autumn that I had to loosen their roots first with a fork before pulling them out and dumping them into the newly emptied compost bin. few weed seeds went in with the weeds but it was too much hassle to separate them. In future I shall have to get better at hoeing weeds down before they seed! I took some photos but I had been caught by the early dusk and it was too dark for the camera! I harvested a couple of smallish cauliflowers and some turnips. I also tried to dig up a single parsnip in the gloom, only to find I had left two seedlings together and one had 'hugged' the other in an embrace that meant I had both, one with two arms (or legs). However, both were quite big enough to use. After a quick tour of the site to make sure I was the only one idiotic enough to be working in the dark, I arrived at the gate to find it wide open! I hope it was not because someone dived in for a quick visit behind me as I locked the gate behind me. I finally managed to dig out the last of my compost bin and transfer it to its neighbour!
I tidied up and re-stapled the landscape fabric to the insides of the pallets and found that folding it over on itself produced a nice tidy edge round the top - and the edges of the fabric do not shred out so much! It didn't take long to nearly half fill the emptied bin with some of my collected weeds and the contents of some of the plastic bags of garden refuse donated by my neighbours at home. No time to do much else but I took home a lovely small cauliflower that had appeared suddenly. There are a couple more that should soon be ready. This s the start of the succession of cauliflowers I hope to harvest through the winter thanks to the plants bought from the frames outside the Trading Hut. The people who raise the seedlings are obviously much better at doing so than I am! I am collecting piles of weeds on the plot as my compost bins are very full already. Having emptied the middle bin onto the asparagus I now need to transfer the contents of the two outside bins into it. This aerates the compost and makes the decomposition faster as it also mixes up as dig it out and shovel it over. As you can see from the photo I cut down through the layers before shovelling the muck over in to the bin next to it. It is hard work but worth it as the resulting compost benefits from being mixed up and aerated. To help the process I collected a barrow full of hay from the nearest horse litter bin and scattered that over the compost in the new bin. The contents of the bin pictured are very compacted and wet so I hope this hay will lighten it a little and help it finish rotting down into friable sweet compost. Just to help it mix in I used my aerating tool. This is a spike with a pair of barbs that help pull compost up from below to mix in with the hay topping.
I am just over halfway through digging it out and doing a bit each time I go down to the plot but the piles of weeds scattered around the plot keep on growing while I struggle to get an empty bin to put them in. This Sunday I finally got my peas and beans sown. I got down to the plot early and managed to get both rows sown and given a light sprinkling of paraffin to keep the mice away. I moved on to open up the most mature compost bin ready to start transferring it to the middle and final bin. Then I decided to take a break and have my customary morning coffee and cake at the cafe. As usual it was a very cheery crowd and it was nearly an hour before I got back to the plot to dig out and transfer about a third of the compost over to the new bin. It is a bit wet and soggy so really needs stirring up and aerating. As always there were raspberries to pick and I dug a couple of leeks to take home. I need to leave the rest to fatten up before I eat them all. The 3 rows should last me through to next April, if the pests and diseases don't get them first! At Home I am trying to sort out what seeds I need for next year. As always I have collected loads of packets from Magazines, cheap seeds from the shops and garden centre's autumn clearances as well as those I bought on a whim! Many of the packets are old so I mark each packet with the last year I can use them using a chart of how long each type of seed lasts. As long as I keep them dry and not too hot or cold (I use the spare room at home) I can use them. I have found several websites with 'seed viability' charts and use them as a guide, remembering that many are for the USA. You can check them out using these web pages. You need to remember that these figures apply only if the seed has been kept in the a pristine state. I assume that once opened the packet has a very short shelf life, especially if it was in a foil pack inside the packet.
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May 2023
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