Sowing Turnips and Other Odd Jobs

Tuesday 25th April
The forecast cold winds arrived this morning and I had only a light sweater. It had been so cold that the frost had hit all the exposed potato haulms on lots of plots and even those on my plot that I had protected with fleece showed some signs of damage on the leaf tips. To warm up I started by rolling out the Association rotovator and cultivating the first customer's plot under the 'free cultivation for new tenants' voucher scheme. The plot had already been cleared with a mechanical digger so I was to just create a fine tilth. It took longer to lift the landscape fabric cover than it did to actually work the soil. With so little rain recently the soil was super dry so I re-covered the patch as best I could afterwards and put the machine away before returning to work on my own plot.
Today I had made sure I had my seeds. It was a quick task to run my hand cultivator over the prepared strip and carve the drill with a trowel. I sowed only half a row as they are a hybrid designed for baby turnips and I plan to sow a maincrop later in the rest of the row.
I then planted out a few of my Poached Egg plants I had grown at home in modules. I planted them in amongst the brassicas hoping to attract predatory insects to control the greenfly. Once planted I hope they will reseed themselves every year as they used to in the garden at home.
I also started to screw together my bean frame ready to tie the canes to but one post rotted off so I had to leave the job half done. By then it was time to gather my harvest of leeks, a cabbage (not very solid but useable), some more unexpected purple sprouting together with curly kale sprouts, and some rhubarb.

A neighbour then offered me a huge parsnip, one of many he had dug up, which I accepted. It was much bigger than my 8 inch stripling.





​When I got home I realised I had forgotten to cut any of the asparagus spears that are emerging from some of my asparagus plants. I hope the other plants in the bed will come into production later but the ones I am cutting now must be the variety 'Connover's Collosal' as they are huge and thicker than my thumb!

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