Entries from May 2009 ↓

This is the lavender plant I set up at the plot a few weeks ago. I want to attract bees to pollinate my plants. We are not allowed to have hives up there as the plot holders voted against – probably worried about getting stung. So this is my little defiance as we need bees and every bit helps, I think.

I’ve set the cauliflower yesterday and have put them somewhere warm until they can go out. I don’t like leaving anything out in this weather to be honest. It’s just not summer yet and too cold/windy for them.

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These are the beans I planted out last weekend. Having been back to them they seem to be a bit dried out, despite a spot of rain and plenty of watering. I think it’s more likely they are wind blown.

I am going to set some more to be on the safe side.

Today I planted out the lettuce. I have used a grow bag and the cold frame in order to get around the problem of the wind and the not so warm weather at the moment.

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As you can see the Poached Egg plants are on the way big time. They have spread a little this year and so I have had to cut them back as they are encroaching on the rest of the plot and I don’t want that to happen.

I do want them to encourage little creatures to eat aphids and the like, but not if there is no plot left to protect. They seem to be outdoing even the strawberries in their spreading ability.

If you look at them last year you can see a real difference.

Here is a quick look at the strawberries. As you can see it was a little windy when I took the video.

If you are wondering what I am throwing on them, it’s manure. As I didn’t move all of them last year, I feel I need to give the soil a little something to keep it going.

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Here are the actual potatoes I planted in the trench yesterday. As you can see they are pretty well along the way and ripe for planting out. I hope the nails don’t cause too much of a problem for them, though with this trench I took them out of the ash first.

Doesn’t the root in the first picture look a little hairy?

Somebody asked me about the ashes I used for the potatoes. As you can see from the photos below they were not quite what I had anticipated.

I must stop being lazy when digging and planting at the plot. Still, it’s an experiment I guess – and I will learn a valuable lesson when I have to take them out later in the year. 🙁

This is what they looked like when wet:

I dug another trench for my spuds today. As you can see from the photos below I dug it quite straight, but it wasn’t half heavy work as the soil may look dry on top, but it is not underneath. I’m only little so it’s back breaking work for me.

This is the trench I dug. You can see the ash and manure already on top of the spuds.

In this last picture I am backfilling the trench after covering the spuds with manure and ash.

I have been putting my spuds in this weekend. I have a few rows now.

The next video show me backfilling the trench to cover them up. You can see that I am breaking up the topsoil as I go. This is much easier to do that than go through the hassle of rotavating. Although I may well do that next year as my back is not what it used to be, that or I have lost a little enthusiasm for digging.

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