Finally got round to making a little video of my growing area, also featuring my frugal pallet shed:
I'm afraid the focus is pretty bad. I'm suspecting the auto focus on the camera is actually not working, as I can take reasonable pictures manually, but not with the autofocus. Unfortunately that is not practical for a video...
Considering we had gale force winds a week ago, the vegetable area is looking pretty good just now. I'm seriously considering making another, more zone 2 ish, growing area next to where my new polytunnel is going. This will be much handier for harvesting food for dinner, whereas the current growing area is half way down the hill and is designed more for one off, end of season harvest.
I wanted to grow out some more annual vegetable seeds this year, so have squeezed in beet, onion, kohlrabi, scorzonera, burdock, fennel as well as the main roots (parsnip, swede and carrots). Having them in the roots bed has made the rows a little close together, so I haven't been able to mulch much. The leaf beet in particular has grown really well, but being in the wrong permaculture zone, hasn't made it to the kitchen very often.
roots bed in August
The root crops are starting to bulk out. Some of the carrots look pretty good. They are a bit close together, which is probably affecting their size. I should go along the row and mark the ones that look as if they are already worth harvesting so I can consider keeping them for seed production.
a real carrot!
Some of the Swede also look pretty impressive and again the leaves are covering between the row and must be inhibiting weed competition.
Swede swelling in August
The parsnip roots, as far as I can tell are still pretty small, although the top growth looks fairly healthy and they were sown with a bit of space between seeds. However I also have some self sown plants that have come up next to the vegetable beds where the plants that were left to go to seed were growing last year. These are in ground that was covered in twiggy sticks to clear it, but has quite a bit of creeping thistle and grass coming back. One or two of the roots there look surprisingly good!
self sown parsnip
So far the potatoes look healthy. The bed is over run with silverweed as well as potatoes. It is a bit early to get much from the silverweed roots at the moment, but I may get two harvests for the price of one when I dig the main crop tubers! I've still got a few more of the early potatoes to dig up. They are still looking good with no pest damage. I think that early potatoes will be another crop to try in a different, more handy plot.
potato salad for dinner!
The grains did get blown about by the wind, but mostly seem to have recovered somewhat. The bere barley is starting to fill out the heads, as are the rye, but the oats still look a bit young. It is too early to say what the weather and pests will leave in terms of yield, but they are looking good so far. There was no sign at all of smut on the oats this year.
grains bed in august
The legumes bed is a bit tumbled over, but I think it was that was before the winds! Some of the loose top branches did get snapped off, but generally I seem to have got away with very little losses. Maybe having the plants lower and scrambling supporting themselves rather than with pea sticks, gives more protection from the strong weather. The peas are starting to harden off in their pods, and again having some plants closer to the kitchen for picking green seems like a good idea!
little and large pea pods
I think, if I'm doing another growing area, I will separate out the broad beans and the field beans and grow them separately. It makes sense to me to pick broad beans for eating green and field beans to dry for stews.
This year I finally feel that things have gone well in the growing area. Obviously I'm not quite at harvest yet, but I could have been eating quite a bit from the garden over the summer, which is the first time I have managed that outside here, and with much less effort than previous years! This is due to a combination of the work I've done in previous years in preparing the soil, having my own saved seeds, maybe better weather and bit less pest pressure - I'm feeling pretty happy!
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