It is not intended for the videos posted here to be instructional or to show the 'correct' way of doing things. They just show 'our' way and what works for us.
A look at the progress our early and summer brassicas are making on the plot. Our early bought in plants are doing well but our summer crop of self-raised plants not so well.
We made a start this weekend on getting our home greenhouse into summer mode. This meant moving out plants destined for the allotment and planting up peppers and aubergines into big enough pots to see them through summer in the greenhouse.
I also emptied out a bag of Casablanca potatoes which had been planted at the beginning of March and left to grow on in the greenhouse.
A bit of video of our cardoons taken on Monday before the gale force winds and on Wednesday afternoon showing the damage to the plants. I need to think of a way to support our cardoons for next year.
A busy week saw us sowing carrots and parsnips as well as planting out some of our pot grown brassica plants. The last of this year's potatoes were planted.
Varieties
Carrots: Autumn King, Flyaway, Marion and Royal Chantenay 3
If you follow our blog you'll know we don't plant our potatoes in the traditional way of digging out a trench which then has compost or manure added before the potatoes are placed in the trench which is then backfilled. We prefer the trowel only method.
For our first earlies we don’t plant through weed control fabric. These will be lifted individually as soon as we think there will be a useful crop of tasty new potatoes and weed control fabric means this is rather awkward. They are planted at about a trowel’s depth. We’ve found this gives us good results.
For maincrop potatoes where the crop will be lifted once the foliage has died down we plant through weed control fabric. Once the crop is ready for lifting the weed control fabric is removed and the crop lifted.
Our first earlies are Casablanca and the six varieties of “new to us” potatoes are Cara, Innovator, Isle of Jura, Osprey, Rooster, & Saxon.
We’ve been making the most of the excellent spring sunshine to get beds ready for planting next month. Our peas, onions and shallots will be planted through weed control fabric which was laid over the appropriate bed. The fabric is used year after year and is rotated along with its crop with suitable holes or slits already made in the fabric.
Sue repotted our two cranberry bushes which grow in tubs outside the greenhouse. They hadn’t been done for a few years and desperately needed some new compost.
On the plot our fruit trees are starting to break into flower. Our plum Oullins gage is the first to flower.
Finally, there is my best bit of robin video. It’s been singing to us all afternoon long on our visits over the last few days.
Flexible planting plans
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We still haven’t managed anything like a spell of good weather. We have to
go back to the first 3 days of February for a run of 3 consecutive days
without ...
Spring green and blue
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Our weather continues to be unsettled. I guess that we should see that as a
bonus as now it just rains some of the time.
We have had some hail and rain...
GCR's Last Hurrah of the Season" filmed in 4K
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Great Central Railway's "Last Hurrah of the Season" saw the following
locos in action on Saturday. Filmed at Quorn & Woodhouse, Rothley and
Loughborough s...
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