The weather has finally turned a little colder.
I went down to spread the horse litter from the heap at the end of my plot, dropped off during the Working Party on Sunday. One of next year's cabbage patch is now mulched with it, though I had to hoe some of the more established weeds off as they would have grown through.
I put a layer on the compost heap to balance the grass cuttings I added in a quick visit yesterday. In between barrowing the heap to the patch and spreading it, when I found it was a bit heavy going, I went and spread the pine needles over the path beside the summer raspberries. I will scrape the old pine needles from beside the autumn raspberries on the other side and put them on top of the new ones. This year my supply of needles is rather smaller than normal so the autumn raspberries will have to be mulched with woodchip.
The other task I completed was planting the Garlic I bought at Stewarts last autumn. I had left them in the bag as they can be planted any time over the winter. Unfortunately they had got rather mouldy so I had to throw away some of two of the three bulbs. I am saving the best bulb for another row but I got 16 cloves out of the two and planted a whole row. I left about 8" between cloves so I will be able to hoe off the weeds between them later without risking cutting into them. I will plant the rest when this cold spell is over.
Having put some of the litter in the compost bin I ran out mulching the cabbage patch so I went down to the end of the track to get a barrow-load more. However, the newest heap was all hay with droppings mixed in so I first took a barrowful of that for the compost bin. The more mixed the ingredients the better the compost!
Then I had to go back for a barrow-load of the old horse litter at the back of the bin to finish the cabbage patch mulch. The material at the bottom is always better as the liquid manure is washed down to the bottom by the rain.
To finish I harvested a few leeks (they are still very thin), a couple of parsnips (multi-rooted as normal this year!), a couple of turnips and I cut the rest of the row of Perpetual Spinach. The plants I cut first are now big enough to give another cutting and I will have enough even in the depths of winter as there is still another later sowing across on the other side of the plot.
At home I discovered most of my winter Squashes were beginning to go mouldy at the stalk so I spent part of the afternoon cubing the inside flesh so it can be frozen. My big marrows have still not been eaten as they are so big, but they both have started to rot so I'm not sure we will have anything from them as I don't think they can be frozen even when cubed!
I went down to spread the horse litter from the heap at the end of my plot, dropped off during the Working Party on Sunday. One of next year's cabbage patch is now mulched with it, though I had to hoe some of the more established weeds off as they would have grown through.
I put a layer on the compost heap to balance the grass cuttings I added in a quick visit yesterday. In between barrowing the heap to the patch and spreading it, when I found it was a bit heavy going, I went and spread the pine needles over the path beside the summer raspberries. I will scrape the old pine needles from beside the autumn raspberries on the other side and put them on top of the new ones. This year my supply of needles is rather smaller than normal so the autumn raspberries will have to be mulched with woodchip.
The other task I completed was planting the Garlic I bought at Stewarts last autumn. I had left them in the bag as they can be planted any time over the winter. Unfortunately they had got rather mouldy so I had to throw away some of two of the three bulbs. I am saving the best bulb for another row but I got 16 cloves out of the two and planted a whole row. I left about 8" between cloves so I will be able to hoe off the weeds between them later without risking cutting into them. I will plant the rest when this cold spell is over.
Having put some of the litter in the compost bin I ran out mulching the cabbage patch so I went down to the end of the track to get a barrow-load more. However, the newest heap was all hay with droppings mixed in so I first took a barrowful of that for the compost bin. The more mixed the ingredients the better the compost!
Then I had to go back for a barrow-load of the old horse litter at the back of the bin to finish the cabbage patch mulch. The material at the bottom is always better as the liquid manure is washed down to the bottom by the rain.
To finish I harvested a few leeks (they are still very thin), a couple of parsnips (multi-rooted as normal this year!), a couple of turnips and I cut the rest of the row of Perpetual Spinach. The plants I cut first are now big enough to give another cutting and I will have enough even in the depths of winter as there is still another later sowing across on the other side of the plot.
At home I discovered most of my winter Squashes were beginning to go mouldy at the stalk so I spent part of the afternoon cubing the inside flesh so it can be frozen. My big marrows have still not been eaten as they are so big, but they both have started to rot so I'm not sure we will have anything from them as I don't think they can be frozen even when cubed!
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