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Friday 22 October 2010

Mixed weather had its effect but there is good news too!

We’ve had mixed weather since I wrote in September and this has had its effect on the SFG.


The picture above shows the SFG just before Green Drinks on 12th October. Bottom left the Pink Fir Apple potatoes have died back and need harvesting, and the runner beans are flowering and maturing.

The picture below shows a close-up of the beans, some of which I can report were tender and full of flavour.


The following image shows the harvest of Pink Fir Apple potatoes which, together with some rocket were donated to the “Veg swap” at Green Drinks in the Farmers Boy (shown next).



Over the last few nights we’ve had our first frosts and this has turned the remaining beans into frozen food and when thawed they lose their flavour and texture. I’ve cut the bean vines off just above the ground and stored the bean sticks in the shed. The roots of the beans bring nitrogen up from deeper in the soil, ‘fixing it’ as nodules and making it available for other crops.

The photo below shows the bean stalks left in the soil and the effect of Leek Moth on the leeks – shredded leaves and in one case, a completely destroyed plant.


However there is good news also!


In the photo above, you can see the final harvest of the beetroot and some more carrots; and there are still more to come and no sign of carrot fly infection in the roots, so maybe covering with fleece worked. In addition, the rocket continues to crop really well and the chard is growing well too.

This leaves a few squares vacant which I have dressed with some blood, fish and bone organic fertilizer.


Above you may just see that I’m planting some overwintering onions where the potatoes were and I’ve put some garlic between the carrots and leeks.

To plant, making sure the onion or garlic is the right way up, I simply push them just below the loosened soil surface. I am not putting the onions and garlic where they were before; this is crop rotation.

In the square vacated by the beans I’ll try a few more winter lettuce, and I’ll plant some broad bean seeds in the central square. Not ideal as they’ll cast shadow on the squares to their west and north but as I’m rotating crops I don’t have any other options.

Now the SFG can be put to bed for the winter. I’ll protect with fleece and harvest as crops mature otherwise there’s little more I can do. Below is a ‘winter plan’.


In case you read this but have not kept abreast of other Grow Your Own Food happenings, I’m attaching ‘before and after’ pics of our demonstration garden at the Courtyard Cafe, next to the museum in Hatfield Road.

The idea is one step up from the SFG and shows what might be grown in an area about 3m x 4m. The owner kindly lets us use this plot; and he plans to use the produce in the cafe!



One other, much bigger growing food event, was the first planting of the Woodland Trust, Heartwood Forest Orchard, on Apple Day 21st October, yesterday.

Below you see me planting one of the first of 600 fruit trees which will be planted here, just outside Sandridge.


Keep warm and watch this space near Christmas.

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