Brassicas

Heather sowed our brassica seeds in the nursery bed this morning.

We are growing : Brussels Spouts Trafalgar F1, Red Cabbage Kalibos, Kale Tosco di Nero, Savoy Cabbage Tarvoy and Cauliflower Candid Charm.

Going tits up !

A beautiful afternoon down at the patch.

Heather tidied-up the garlic and onions and I dug the trench that will be filled with manure and compost .This will be where we plant our leeks in June.

Best of all, was the sight of a Blue Tit closely examining the bird box we have put up. It then flew off with its mate... so we wait to see if they will return to nest.

'Taters

Good Friday is the traditional day for planting potatoes, but we took advantage of the good weather to get down to the patch today and plant them one day earlier.

We planted 4 x 15' rows of Golden Wonder and 2 x 20' rows of Cara.

Two additional rows of onion sets Red Baron were also planted.

Tidying up

We had a few hours down at the patch this morning.

Heather tidied up the peas and beans. The gaps in the Autumn sown peas have been filled by taking plants from another bed and the Autumn sown broad beans have been consolidated into two beds.

The garlic is looking really healthy after having been hoed and given a dressing of bonemeal.

A lovely day to be caught in the rain !

Not a very pleasant day yesterday, but we put our rainwear on and got stuck in.

Heather put in a lot of effort weeding and applying a mulch to the fruit bushes.

As can be seen from the picture below, the bushes are looking really healthy and are already producing new buds. In the coming weeks we will be building a cage to protect the fruit from birds .

I managed to plant three rows of early potatoes : Two rows of Nadine and one row of Maris Piper... which are not really early, but produce the best-tasting 'new' potatoes when lifted whilst still small.

Sowing the seeds

We had a very productive morning down at The Patch today.

After lifting the black polythene sheeting, the nursery bed was raked-over and we sowed Leeks (Bleu de Solaise & Oarsman F1) and some Purple Sprouting Broccoli.

In the remaining area, we sowed Shallots (Banana) and Onion (White Spanish Sweet).

We allocated a space to plant Onion (Kelsae) seedlings once they are large enough to transplant.

We lifted the Onion plants (Sehshyu Yellow) that were sown in the Autumn and transplanted them in a new bed with good spacing to allow them to attain a good size for the kitchen.

In the space vacated, we sowed a row of Spinach (Perpetual & Fiorana F1) and a row of Japanese Bunching Onions (Ishikura).

To complete the morning, a row of Beetroot (Moneta) and a part row of Radish (Candela di Fuoco) were sown either side of the Apples.

Three potato, four...

Our seed potatoes were delivered during the week and are now ready for chitting on the shed window shelf.

For those interested, the seed potatoes are Thompson & Morgan stock, but supplied by Capital Gardens at 25% discount.

See here for details.