Saturday 21 March 2009

A sunny sunny day

It's the southern (hemisphere) planting period at the moment, which means no sowing, transplanting or pruning if you follow the biodynamic guide. and live in the northern hemisphere. Plenty of other stuff to get on with though including....


I took this sort of 'cloche' down to the plot today. I'd made it a few years ago from willow and some clear plastic, plus some string and some of those metal foldly pins (can you tell I've forgotten what they're called!). I don't think I've ever actually used it before but it might help a bit. I've put it over some radish and beetroot seedlings, which I'm growing as a catch crop before putting up some wigwams for cucumbers or something similar later in the year.

The beetroot seedlings (Detroit, sowed on14 Feb) They've only just come up and I had been worried I'd sowed them a bit early but maybe that biodynamic stuff is working eh!

Same goes for these radishes (Scarlet Globe)

The cloche is held down by some of these pegs, which we made when coppicing the buddleia. I think they'll come in very handy.

This is the asparagus bed. We got some lovely crowns last year from the Organic Gardening Catalogue but didn't have any manure etc to prepare the bed so we just put them in without it (though we did clear all the couch grass and brambles of course!). Unsurprisingly the crowns didn't do very well, which I think wasn't helped by a long dry spell during which I neglected them a bit too (whoops). After that period I watered them well and mulched the bed with straw. So last week I couldn't wait any longer to see if they'd survived and carefully dug down to one...and phew! It was ok. So to give them a helping hand, as previously mentioned, I've put some manure on top of the bed. Fingers crossed!

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