Up to my neck in poo

or manure if you prefer.

Having got umpteen little jobs out of the way on Monday, and finally got all my accounts sorted, filed, acknowledged and signed off to keep the tax man happy for another year I can put all the pretty colour coordinated folders away, take off my office work head and get back to being a scatterbrained hippy in the garden.

Hurrah!

So - new strawberry plot to be dug, old plot to be dug over and big piles of stinking poo to move around.

Here is the existing edge of the strawberry plot.

Here is the new bit dug over.

Here is the new bit planted with baby runner plants.

All edged with the local building blocks that our house is also constructed from.

And even better - Ferguson caught his first BIG mouse.

YAY!!!


Much more fun than calculating balance sheets.

Lunar planting - root veg

Following from the fruit planting weekend, the moon now moves into Virgo, an earth sign, so a perfect time for planting rooted, earthy veg.

Once back from work and after a quick lunch, I set to with my trusty trowel and a bunch of seeds.

I do not believe in planting root veg for transplanting, the roots are so delicate that unless you spend hours and hours making paper seed pots or cutting and stuffing toilet rolls which you can put straight into the ground, you risk damaging the roots and stopping plant growth.

I wait until the soil temperature has gone up to about 10 to 12 degrees, then plant straight outside when the risk of heavy frosts is over.

Today I planted parsnips - taken from seed from last years crop, carrots - an organic strain called Jeanette, beetroots, kohl rabi and onions from seed. I normally plant my onion sets a bit later, but this year having had a few onions bolt and go to seed last autumn, I thought I would try sowing some of these seeds to see how they do.

I companion sow my carrots and parsnips with my onions to help protect against carrot fly, sometimes sowing in the same row, or, as this year, alternate rows of leek, parsnip, white onion, carrots, and red onions.

I tend to sow my carrots much denser than advised, as I like to harvest baby carrots rather than thin out and waste any plants. A pinch of about 3 to 4 seeds every 10 cms gives good growth and a chance to harvest the baby carrots when they are about 10 cm in length, leaving just one carrot behind in each clump to grow on. To preserve I harvest, wash the dirt off, cut into julienne strips or rings and freeze in large bags as fast as possible to preserve their goodness, normally doing 3 large carrier bag fulls this way will see us through until the first baby carrots are ready to eat in the summer.

I sow my beetroots in a similar fashion, smoothing the earth in the row flat with the back of the rack, I then use the stave to create little depressions in the ground about 15 cms apart. Into each depression I drop about 3 to 4 seeds, water in and then lightly cover. When they start to grow, I harvest the beets when they are about golf ball size, again leaving behind just one beetroot to grow on. The baby beets are lovely roasted whole with garlic or pickled. The larger beets will be made into chutneys.

When I boil up my larger beetroots to make chutney, I wash them thoroughly then boil them whole leaving the skins on for about 45 minutes to an hour so that they soften up and the skin peels away very easily. This red beetroot water is never wasted, once drained I keep some for dying wools and cottons, and the rest I freeze into plastic pop bottles so that I have a ready supply of beetroot base for making barszcz in the winter.

With my root veg from seed sown today, that just leaves some potatoes to go in, some onion sets to get, and lots of patience waiting for the coldframe seeds to sprout and grown on ready for transplanting. April is nearly over and the garden is nearly done.

First Battalion of the Kelvedon Brigade

The advance guard are out in force, standing to attention and ready for inspection.

I always plant my beans and peas initially in toilet roll tubes - it is just one of the many things that I ask my clients and friends to keep in their 'Monika' boxes. Planting them like this protects them from extremes of weather once out in the garden, as well as slugs and other pests, and the toilet tubes degrade naturally in the soil once transplanted leaving lovely healthy deep roots. When planting out, leave a centimetre or so lip of cardboard above the ground this does seem to deter a lot of pests.

My cucumber seedlings are looking lovely and healthy, they are obviously enjoying  being in the greenhouse, they just need another few leaves and out into the garden they will go.

 My  little Calabrese seedlings are coming along quite well too, and I planted another few out today - I plant according to the lunar calendar and today is a leaf planting day according to the biodynamic calendar.

Biodynamic:
Moon in Cancer: This is a Water sign. It is a good time to sow Leaf plants like Basil, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbages, Celeriac, Celery, Dill, Kale, Lettuce, Rhubarb, Seakale, Spinach, Swiss Chard, but it would not be a good time to sow Fruiting plants like Aubergines (Eggplant), Broad Beans (Fava), Cucumbers, French Beans, Marrows and Courgettes, Peas, Peppers, Pumpkins, Runner Beans, Squashes, Sweetcorn, Tomatoes - taken from :  http://www.the-gardeners-calendar.co.uk/Moon_Planting.asp

These are the spinach, sprout and additional calabrese seeds heading out to the cold frames this morning.
I have grown Swiss and Rainbow Chard in previous years but have decided not to this year, after I found two bags full of frozen chard in the freezer - we or rather I, am just not using it enough to warrant growing any more this year.

One of my favourite things in the herb garden is horseradish.  I was very lucky when my father-in-law's partner sent me some a few years ago via the postal service.  I was not sure how it would survive after a week in an envelope but I planted it out and it thrives, coming back year after year, but getting bigger and bigger every year - it just means that I have to make more and more horseradish sauce, one of my favourite relishes and one I have not seen for sale here in France.  In fact if you mention that you eat horseradish (raifort)  they look at you very strangely - they consider it a weed and mostly inedible (or at least they do in this region anyway).

My herb garden is doing well, chives are thriving, I have garlic chives too, and they smell gorgeous, mint and marjoram are taking over a bit,  but rather than pulling them up I am more inclined to expand the herb garden to accomodate them.

Our garden is approximately 12 metres by 38 metres, which is a lot of ground to cover.  By about July I have abandoned weeding completely and only keep the planted rows clear and between rows I have learnt to keep a wide space - big enough for the lawnmower - more cheating I know, but life is short - too short to weed out every tiny bit of sorrel and yarrow and many other miscellaneous and unidentified plants otherwise known as weeds.

So after a lovely morning of planting out a few more of my leafy seeds like celery, after work I headed home for a bit of rotavating.  Luckily Brendan had been up and down the garden for the last cut before the storms forecast tonight and tomorrow, so I put up my guide lines and then went over the rows with the hoe for a clean till ready for planting.

I am actually hoping that the storms arrive because the ground is so dry, in fact I had to get the well pump running this morning for the duck pond which has dried up in the last couple of days.

This weekend is one of my busiest planting and seeding times, but in addition it is also the first big car boot of the season -  whoooo hoooooo - I lurve car booting.