I've now got all my seeds in the ground - other than my grains. There are no signs of the potatoes above ground yet, but the peas and beans are both doing well. I estimate I'm 2 - 3 weeks ahead of last year, although maybe a bit behind on the grains which I sowed on the 2nd May 2023. I'll probably get those sown in a couple of days.
I've been collecting rocks for the bird perch. I think it will be easier to get it up and secure in one go, but I'll need quite a pile of rocks to start with and it is easier to move a few at a time while I'm doing other stuff.
The neeps (rutabaga/swede) have started to flower and the parsnip adjacent to them are also running to seed nicely. I'm happy that the comfrey next to them are establishing well and have been encouraging them with urine thanks to my handy modesty shack (aka Nancy's frugal yurt shed). I'll probably not cut them much this year - I have a fair amount in other areas of the field. But next year I should be able to cut them a couple of times for mulching my growing beds.
swede and parsnip starting to flower (and comfrey leaves)
Having a lot of debris on the beds does not make for a smooth seed bed. Some of the material I mulched with last year was pretty twiggy, and the leaves and the seaweed were put on quite recently so have not biodegraded much yet. However there already seems to be more earthworms in the beds, and more life on the surface. You can see little white worms in this photo :
more soil life in surface debris
I'm not sure what they are but they appear to be converting the leaves into soil for me.
I've raked the debris off where I was sowing seeds and then lightly raked a little back to provide a fair amount of exposed soil. Hopefully the crops will sprout and start to cover that soon. So the carrots, neeps and parsnip are in one bed. This year I made sure they were sown in separate strips and each variety in a separate block so that I know if I have a good variety of different ones to go to seed next year. I used twigs to mark the different variety blocks, and noted which were which in my record book, in case I want to try resowing any that fail. I also sowed a single full row of my saved carrot seed. It will be interesting to see how well they do in comparison to the bought varieties in this first year.
Roots bed newly sown
The leeks I sowed inside hoops cut from cut off old plant pots in the replant perennial bed. I'm hoping that they will get big enough to transplant in between the root crops before the potato foliage starts to cover the bed too much. Mind you maybe that would work too, to blanch the stems? The hoops will hopefully give the seedlings a little protection from slugs this year. I think that was probably the fate of all my leeks last year.
In the gap in between the peas and beans I have sowed some more root crops: scorzonera, salsify and burdock. Salsify is a biennial like carrots and seeds around for me up the hill, although it seems to prefer the rocky path to the borders! Scorzonera and burdock are both perennial, but can be sown as an annual for roots too. I've not tried burdock yet. I have a mix of japanese and local seed, although some of it is pretty old. I really like Scozonera leaves and am hoping to be able to transplant some roots to a permanent position to make more of this crop. Unfortunately although mine flower quite well, they don't set seed for some reason.
Plants grow so quickly this time of year! It's hard to believe that the last post was only two weeks ago. I have got my grains sown now, but as yet no sign of them - they only took about a week to show last year.
sowing bere barley on modules
This year I have sown them in rows and as per the advice on this thread I started I trod along the row as I planted so as to give them good soil contact. As a back up I made some cardboard dividers to make modules in some spare mushroom boxes and sowed a couple of trays with some more of the more precious seeds to hopefully transplant in a couple of weeks.
legumes bed May '24
I've got a good germination in the end of the peas and beans, so am quite happy there. I can see something germinating in between, but am not sure if it is salsify or scorzonera as yet - I'm not familiar enough with the seedlings to say.
potatoes sprouting nicely
I think all the potatoes are sprouting now - The earlies came up first, but there seemed to be very little difference in the appearance of the ones that had been chitted in different ways. One thing that was perhaps also interesting was that the potatoes took longer to appear than last year - presumably because being planted earlier the soil temperatures were colder.
leek seedlings in protective collar
It looks like this year I have definitely got a good germination of leeks, as seedlings of both varieties are now showing in most of the collars. You're suppose to transplant them when they are the "thickness of pencils" I seem to remember. In a simple farming system I would hope to do without transplanting, however I'd like to actually achieve leeks this year! I'm hoping that I can transplant them in between the swede, and that those will help blanch the stems rather than earthing up etc.
Speaking of Swede, these are now in full bloom and are looking lovely!
It looks like my main roots bed had been a complete wipe out. I'm not completely sure why but I suspect birds. I added some compost from emptying my old compost bin and birds have been pecking and scratching around in the bed and have completely destroyed any seedlings that I thought there were. Hey ho. I ought to have my own swede seed next year from the plants that are currently flowering, new parsnip seed from flowering roots, and also left over carrot seeds from last year's flowers. I'm still not happy that I have got a good cross section of varieties however, so I may treat myself to new seed as well next year. I'm really glad I had a go at an extra garden bed for the GAMCOD project because the beds there have germinated pretty well and the birds have left those beds alone (so far!). I just used up some of the seeds that were old, or I had lots of, so it again won't be a full mix, but hopefully I can save some of those roots for going to seed next year.
The fava beans have been the star crop so far. They are not particularly tall, but have been flowering away like mad and the crimson flowered ones are just darling! I would grown those just for the flowers! I'm thinking of pinching out the tips once I see pods starting to form to try and get good seeds earlier.
crimson flowered beans
I have also needed those back up grains. I got poor germination, especially from the barley. I think that again the mulch is a mixed blessing here. I used a lot of leaves and they are a bit light and blow around in the wind. I think they have drifted and mulched out the grains. It is possible I sowed a little deep also in the attempt to overcome the bird issue! Interestingly, the very few barley grains I did manage to save from last year were noticable for their good germination, despite the ear not really being ripe. The grains in the modules looked a bit yellow - they could have done with being planted out a week or so ago, but I'm sure they will catch up now.
grains bed with module sown plants added
I'm also seeing more surface life - this rove beetle was a welcome sight for example:
predator in grains bed
I did a little chop and drop around the potatoes which are now starting to impinge on the leeks. Those are still protected in their little collars, but I'm thinking of transplanting them to the roots bed, then I can really mulch the potatoes. I'm also thinking of sowing some other crops there. It is getting a bit late, so maybe salads and radish....just to fill the bed.
I spoke a bit soon regarding the performance of the peas. It looks like the pesky voles are back at their tricks early this year! Starting at the East end of the row they have already snipped several pea plant stalks and the flowers are only just starting.
vole damaged peas
However, I have a cunning plan! I was wondering how I could construct a vole guard round the pea bed and remembered our butcher's boxes. Generally I don't like them because they have an actual thin plastic layer on them, so not really good for recycling or compost, however I'm hoping that they will stand up to a couple of months weather and provide enough of a deterrent to stop the voles getting the rest of my pea plants. I don't feel sorry for the voles - there is plenty of grass for them to eat and they are leaving most of the pea plants to waste.
vole fence around peas
I used metal paper clips to hold the boxes together at the corners and buried the bottom edge of the cardboard slightly. We'll see whether this works for long enough.....
The fava beans still seem to be doing fine - the pods are just starting to set. I haven't got round to nipping out the tops, but still feel this might give a better dry harvest in the end. Maybe I'll do half and leave half, to see if it does make a difference.
broad beans pod setting pods
On the southern edge of the plot the comfrey has shot up and is actually making quite a reasonable wind break at the moment, a use for it I would not have considered! The bees are loving it's flowers too.
comfrey plants as flowering border plants
I realised that my biannual seed producing flowers make quite a nice succession of food for pollinators and predator insects - first the brassica in April, followed by the Parsnip in June, and the carrots were slightly later into July :)
To be honest, I wasn't really expecting my vole fence to hold up for more than a few days, but I'm happy to report that a few weeks on it still seems to be keeping the voles from biting through the pea stems. I've got peas setting and more flowers coming. Both scorzonera and salsify appear to be coming in between the rows. No burdock as far as I can tell though, which is a bit disappointing. I think I'll try again at least once though....
Pea and Bean bed in July
One half of my pea bed had much better germination than the other - I can't remember which half had the saved seeds. I know they weren't good quality so may not have been very viable. I must keep better records! In the poor half was this beautiful Rose Krone pea with a splendid crown of flowers. The pale pink bicolouration is unique in my pea selections. This variety appears to be quite fasciated causing the clustering of the flowers, and in this case a very thick flattened stem. I was able to reuse one of my cut off pop bottle tree shelters before the pea plant got too big to give it an individual vole guard.
Pea Rosa Krone flowers
So far the broad beans have been setting a bit better than last year. I have nipped out the tops of the plants that had set pods in the hope that this would to encourage them to ripen off. We tried some of the tops as a cooked green vegetable and they weren't bad too! I am starting to see a bit of nibbling evidence on the bean pods. This is probably mice rather than voles, so a different protection technique is required. I still haven't re-erected my buzzard perch - that's one thing that may help. Also I have a fair pile of twiggy branches right next to the end of the bean bed that may be providing shelter for the little nibblers. I've started breaking it up for kindling, but it is a long job (and more interesting things to do...).
Fava bean pods
The potatoes are really looking quite tatty. The earlies have got slug eaten and are just skeletal and the maincrop have a bit of slug damage, but also quite a bit of yellow patches on the leaves. I'm suspecting a virus infestation, so I may try propagating from just the shoots next year to try and clean then up a bit. I scooped a bit of soil around the main crops, but when I tried to do the same for the earlies I accidentally found a potato, so stopped. I think it is probably time to start digging the earlies and see what sort of harvest I have achieved on those.
Tatty leaves on maincrop potatoes
The roots bed, as I said previously, was a complete wash out. I have quite a bit of silverweed spreading it from the edges, so that will make an unintended crop perhaps. I decided to transplant the leeks in anyhow. First I sowed the whole area with some salad leaves. I have several free seed packets, as well as other lettuce and various oriental leaf vegetable seeds. I then transplanted the leeks - poking a hole with a wide stick, dropping one or two tiny leeks in and then watering them in. I tried to keep the different varieties in separate rows. They really are still very tiny. I have grown leeks successfully in the past here, but it was up in the front garden where the soil is much better. These obviously could have done with a better environment - maybe a bit more warmth as well. However maybe I'll get some to seed and create a more robust strain in future. Unfortunately there is no sign of the salad leaves...I'm suspecting maybe slugs have grazed them off this time. They probably just couldn't get going quickly enough to out grow the pests as it has been pretty cool and damp (quite normal there then!)
Tiny leeks transplanted in holes
I'm seeing the first signs of barley heads forming, and just the start of some oat seed heads too. The grains bed was still a bit sparse, so I transplanted some more leeks in the gaps, together with a sprinkling of buckwheat green manure to try and get some living cover on the bare soil. One of the barley heads is obviously bere barley, with 5 rows of grains and a fair length. Most of them are very short though. Early days yet....
Barley heads starting to form
The neeps' seedheads are just about ripe now, so when I get a dry day I will try and get the majority of those harvested. Hopefully I will have lots of seeds for myself and for anyone else who fancies growing a mixed crop of Rutabaga :). The parsnips also have a good seed set, although they are still very green and need a bit longer to ripen - still lots of flowers there too.
A little overdue an update as I approach the end of the growing season. The days quickly get shorter in September here, and as the days get cooler too it becomes a time of hopeful harvest.
The potatoes were the first crops that I cleared completely. Reported on here A reasonable crop considering how pathetic the plants looked. I was a bit worried that the plants had got virus laden, the leaves were so yellow, I may still read up on that before I replant saved tubers next year. The only thing left in the bed were a few of the leeks that didn't get transplanted. I have mulched the bed reasonably thickly with some bracken stalks. I'll try and get some seaweed as well on before the winter sets in - greens and browns!
The leeks I did transplant don't seem to have survived very well. I'm a bit disappointed as I have grown reasonable, if small leeks before. I think the soil in the tree field is still very inhospitable, and we did get a rather poor summer weatherwise which probably didn't help. I know I haven't done as well with mulching with plant matter as Helen would say is necessary to feed the soil organisms - I must try and do better at this!
The fava beans ran out of steam a little early this year. You can see in this photo how the beans on the right (which have particularly shallow soil) are starting to turn yellow:
Fava beans yellowing foliage
After this the plants started to get mould patches and complete defoliation of some of the plants. I picked the beans as the pods were damaged by weather and pests, podding the beans out to dry them. Today I finally decided to pick the lot before they went to waste. The mice hadn't started on them particularly, but stormy weather in August did cause a bit of damage. I still seem to have a nice selection of different colours and sizes.
sorting fava beans by colour and size
I need to decide next year how to select the beans - whether I want to grow broad beans or field beans. The broad beans obviously have larger beans, but the field beans usually have more pods per plant, with hardly fewer beans in them. Broad beans are usually used as a green vegetable, whereas field beans would be more a dried bean perhaps (although can be cooked green like I did for dinner today). I definitely need to have beans that are ripe enough early enough to save seed from, so time to maturity is probably the most important factor.
Broad bean (left) and field beans (right)
I continue to race the mice to the peas. They had been picking the pods entire and taking them down to consume in the shelter of the adjacent beans.
mice banquet residue
I'll continue this way for another week or so and then pick the last of the peas. I'm thinking that the taller pea plants have the slight advantage of being less accessable to the mice at least!
pea and flower variation
The grain bed was looking pretty good a week or so ago, then the mice started harvesting the barley heads. After some consideration, I decided to cut the riper looking stalks and bring them inside. I'm hoping they will continue to ripen in the kitchen and at least I might get some grain, rather than none as last year. The bere barley is quite distinctive, with a round seed head rather than a flat one. The seeds also have a slight stripiness, sometimes reddish in colour, to them. Some of the heads are very short - only 6 grains or so long. This one is a long one:
long bere barley head
The oats have shown no more sign of the loose smut, which I am very pleased about. I just need to keep an eye on the plants to check that the voles and mice aren't moving on to them. Given a bit of good weather I may even be able to harvest those when ripe for a change!
The salsify looks pretty promising - plently of leaves at least. Not so many scorzonera, which is a pity. I'll probably transplant the scorzonera into my polycultures area as it is a perennial with tasty leaves (as well as a root crop). Depending on how much salsify there actually is, I will transplant some of it to make seed nextb year, and hopefully actually eat some too! I haven't found that scorzonera sets seed here, which is a pity.
Hopefully the newly resurrected bird perch (explained here) will relieve some of the pest issues I have had, together with clearing the brush pile that had been giving the mice shelter. I could really do with tilting the odds a bit more in my favour for next year.
Into October and the days are getting shorter and the weather cooler and wetter. We did have a dry sunny spell in September which was a nice bonus. I picked enough of the last of the peas to actually have some to cook and eat! It will be nice when the vegetables are happy enough that I can leave some to crop and some for seed, as I haven't actually eaten much from the garden this year - a fair amount of potatoes, a few peas and beans....There are still some pea plants flowering, so I may get some more green peas, but I won't bother with trying to save any more seeds from them. I'm just trying to dry the seed without them getting mildew.
After leaving the barley stalks to ripen/dry a little in a jug of water on the table, I stripped the seeds off the stalks and have spread them out to dry. The ones that are viable will be earlier ripening.
Bere barley head (left) and normal (two row) barley (right)
I think I will see if I can get more bere barley seed. SASA are the Scottish organisation that keep samples of farmers' seed for research and preservation. I gather they do give out small samples as well, but I don't know whether my projects will qualify. No harm in asking however! They also have landrace black oats as well.....
After the nice weather I decided to strip off the oats too. I didn't bother cut the stalks, just stripped them with my hand. This photo shows the amount from a small sample - I gathered about a gallon or so of seed heads in the end. I gather that they are supposed to be harvested while still slightly green, or else you may lose much of the grain as it becomes loose. Finding somewhere to dry it off the stalk was a little tricky - it is now spread out on the spare bed on a clean sheet! Maybe cutting the stalk might have been easier, since then it could have just stood in a stook somewhere.
Oats harvest
I haven't yet cleared the beds except for the potatoes' bed. I'm not happy with the amount of mulch I have been adding over the growing season and need to work out how to do better at this, but at least I can get some seaweed sorted out to mulch the beds over winter in preparation for next year. I also have more bracken pulled ready to lay on too.
There are still some roots crops to harvest: the scorzonera and salsify are still looking green and growing. I'll dig them all at the same time over winter and select the salsify roots for growing on for seed - I'm going to try and incorporate that in my roots bed in future. I have found that Scorzonera doesn't set seed for me here, although it flowers quite well, but I really like the leaves as a green vegetable, so I'll probably replant those roots in my mini hugels as a perennial vegetable instead. I also have rather a lot of silverweed that grew in from the sides of what should have been the roots bed this year. I'm going to try and harvest that and store it for experimenting with. At least it is giving that bed some coverage along with the buckwheat I sowed when I realised my roots seed had failed.
Spring has sprung and I've been busy trying to get my seeds in in good time. It is so much easier when you don't have to prepare the beds from scratch! Apologies for the length of this post, I have some catching up to do.
At the tail end of last year I managed to get a good amount of seaweed from the beach. Unfortunately it mostly stayed in it's bags over winter. It would have probably been much better if I had managed to spread it earlier. However some bracken, the seaweed, and some home made compost was spread out during March this year. I was hoping this would be early enough that the compost will be less interesting to the birds by the time I sowed my roots seeds.
spreading seaweed mulch
Unfortunately I didn't realise until too late that I did not sieve the compost before bagging it up. My old compost bin had been going for several years and I was not careful with what went in it - all sorts of cardboard, floor sweepings, and waste fruit and vegetables from the shop, and tea bags from before we swapped to loose leaf (and realised not all teabags are pure paper!). Anyhow this has meant that I had to spend quite a long time raking and checking the surface for rubbish. Lesson learnt! I will be much more strict about what gets put in my new compost bin! To be fair, some of this comes from the seaweed. There is always a bit of string from the fishermen mixed in with it and other bits of rubbish that aren't obvious when you gather it up.
basket of rubbish
The potato bed was the first to be tackled for planting. Over the year I have accumulated lots of beef bones, which I use to make bone broth for the dogs. Since my soil is very acidic and probably lacking in Calcium, and since I can't be bothered to crush the boned small enough to have them in the top spit of soil, I dug a very deep channel at the top of the bed and buried the bones there. Hopefully they will still be accessible for the deeper roots, without constantly being dug up!
bones for calcium
Then I filled in the trench a little before planting my saved potatoes. I just have the three varieties this year: Skye blue, pink fir apple, and saved white earlies. I did have one of the Vitanoir that I had kept, but the dogs found it and chewed it up. That variety didn't like it much here anyhow....I haven't got round to sowing any true potato seed this year. Without my polytunnel I haven't got enough space to grow on seedlings so that might be a project for next year now.
Potatoes all planted
As I dug the trenches I had the opportunity to see how well the silverweed has done in cultivated soil. It is definitely much easier to dig when the soil is slightly drier. I was inverting entire clods and the roots were consistently deeper than the spade went, and pretty long and straight. I suspect that these can be a useful extra harvest potentially. At least they are providing 'living roots' to support the soil biota over the winter. I'm yet to discover whether they will be a nuisance from a crop competition point of view.
silverweed long straight roots
The other bed that I have started planting now is the legumes bed. Mostly it is planted with my saved fava seed from last year, but I also planted a little of the seed saved from the previous year, and some old seed from elsewhere. I also got a small amount of some special seed mix from the UK seed mix library. I should be able to plant the peas now too, and I'm hoping to try some runner beans again. I'm going to start those off in 'seed snails' indoors and plant them out later in the year.
As last year, on the bed that was potatoes (and will be grains) I have spread my saved charcoal over half of the bed. The charcoal in last year's bed is hardly visible now, so it is breaking down as expected.
charcoal saved from wood stove
I've also decided to decompact the soil around the bird perch by double digging. Once I've done that I can plant out my poor hop plant that was left in it's pot all last year and I've got quite a few seeds that can be spread on the surface to give a bit of coverage, whilst I get some more nice perennials and companion plants established.
double digging supporting area
There were a few comfrey plants that had grown from damaged roots in the Southernmost bed last year. Some of these I have transplanted near the bird perch to extend the grass barrier, and some I will use elsewhere. The roots tend to be a bit long and brittle and the comfrey can grow from any reasonably sized bit - meaning don't plant it where you might change your mind, as it can be difficult to get rid of! These roots are on plants that are only a year old, although admittedly in my nicely loosened soil of the growing beds.
long roots on one year old comfrey
So that's where I've got to so far. I'm hoping to get the roots, grains and peas sown pretty quickly. The weather next week looks a little more unsettled, so It would be quite good to get the roots seeds sown while there is rain expected to water them in.
So I'm a little behind where I would have liked to be with seed planting. However the fava beans have germinated well and are showing nice little shoots.
fava bean germination
I have planted peas above them in the bed in a broad row together, and I have also interplanted one of the rows of beans with the peas. I am hoping that the beans will disguise the pea stems so that the voles are less likely to nip them through. Also I'm hoping that the beans will support the peas to a certain extent so I won't need pea sticks.
interplanting peas and fava beans
The risk is that the peas will swamp the beans and the whole lot will collapse in a tangled slug eaten mess, time will tell......
To sow the whole double row needed three small jam jars of seeds. Again I had new saved seeds, old saved seeds and some new mixed seeds. I've also made some mixes of mangetout and drying/soup peas which I may sow separately to try and optimise those characteristics. I have some space on last years not-gamcod bed where one of them can go. I'm not sure where I'm going to sow the other....
legume bed fully planted
I just used a spade to plant the peas. I made a slit and dropped about 6 or eight peas behind the blade of the spade and then removed the spade. It was quick and easy to plant the whole bed like that. The seeds are all at different spacing and depths though, so hopefully some will be in a position that they like!
I spent a few hours preparing the beds for the roots and the grains. Ideally I wouldn't be digging them, but I want to try and reduce the amount of creeping buttercup I have as weeds, and forking them out or cutting the roots is the easiest way. There is a seed reservoir to try and deplete as well so this will be a multi year project! Happily I am noticing much more life in the soil in the form of earth worms and rove beetles as I work the soil.
I tried to leave as much roots in as I could, and the leaves also I pulled off and left on the soil surface to decompose. The nasty bits that will regrow I either threw to the borders of the bed, or put in a bucket and relocated elsewhere in the tree field where the soil is a bit shallow to try and help the trees there. As well as the buttercup there was quite a bit of creeping thistle in the roots bed, another few bits of comfrey, several dock, which I think may be curly dock rather than common dock, and some onion grass, and some creeping grass including a little couch. There doesn't seem to be very much couch grass rather to my surprise as I thought the whole area was pretty riddled with it. Of course it may pop up over the summer.....
roots bed cleared ready for planting
The potatoes are also sprouting well. Hopefully this weekend I'll earth them up - maybe with some comfrey leaves as well to give them a bit of nutrition...
potato sprouts
They have grown a little more since this photo was taken.
I managed to clear the grains bed by just hoeing it over. It was a bit tough to cut though the buttercup roots, and I'm pretty sure that some of the buttercups may grow back. As well as my saved seed of bere barley and oats from last year, I still had a fair amount of different barley sources, and a bere barley from a grower in Oxfordshire. I think his source might have been the same as one of my original ones though. I never heard back from SASA on the saved heritage landraces....I'll try again later in the year. Maybe my email got lost.
The chap in Oxfordshire also sent me a bit of his rye grain, which does look rather nice so I sowed a small patch of that too. Apparently they grow rye and black oats together, sometimes with bere barley too, as fodder crops in the outer isles. I'm not sure whether this will be appropriate for me, since I want the grain for my own food use (eventually!) and so I will probably want them separately: bere for malt or baking, rye for baking and oats for porage or baking.
I sowed the grain quite thickly in rows about 4 to 6 inches apart, and trod the soil down fairly firmly again. Hopefully the wildlife won't eat too many before they germinate. Also in this bed I sowed my flax seed. I'm very excited to see how this will do. It is probably not a big enough area to get much flax from, but I can hopefully save the seed to sow more next year if it does well.
So I still have the roots bed to sow. I did transplant the leeks into the bed. They are still very tiny, so I think they will just grow bigger rather than going to seed this year.
My roots crops are multiplying! As well as the original parsnip, carrots and swede, I also have seed for salsify, beetroot, radish, leeks.....I also have lettuce and other leafy crops, which I'm wondering whether will make an undercover crop to the legumes. That starts to be a bit less 'simple' though, especially when it comes to harvest.
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