The Compton Patch

Down to the patch early this morning to tie-in the strings across the wires on the bean bed and then plant the beans.

Mission accomplished !

This is the new bed where we will be growing our climbing beans.

Strings will connect the wires running along the base with the top wire and the beans will be trained to climb up these.

We will be growing a selection of different beans : Runner Beans ‘Enorma‘ and ‘Galaxy‘, Climbing French Beans ‘Fasgold‘ and ‘Cosse ‘Violette‘, Borlotti Beans ‘Lingua di Fuoco‘, Pole Beans’Cherokee Trail of Tears‘ and beans from seeds we bought from a market stall in Portugal that look like Butter Beans.

We will also be growing Sweet Peas to give some added colour.

Back in March we wrote about our problems with overwintered Broad Beans and how we had sown another two rows of the variety ‘Witkiem Manita’… see here.  For some reason or another, only two plants have emerged from this sowing.  We decided to clear the soil from over some of the seeds to see what was going on, but could not find any !

Now it could be that the seeds have rotted away or, more likely, that they have been eaten by mice. Whatever the reason, we will now be sowing some more seeds to ensure a crop for this year.

It was a bright, sunny morning down at the patch today and we were down there early to plant the twelve Chrysanthemum plants that had just been delivered. A row of Fennel ‘Di Firenze‘ has been sown next to the Chrysanths and we will then sow a row of French Marigolds ‘Naughty Marietta’ next to the Fennel to create a fragrant and colourful bed.

All of our  potatoes have now been planted.

A good number of the seeds were damaged by frost after being stored in the shed during the sub-zero weather, so we had to buy new stock.

Two rows of the extra-early variety ‘Rocket‘ were planted in February and covered with cloche tunnels.  In our main potato beds (see picture above) we have planted the following :

• One additional row of ‘Rocket‘
• Two rows of the salad potato ‘Charlotte‘
• Two rows of maincrop ‘Romano‘
• Two rows of maincrop ‘Cara‘
• One row of our exhibition variety ‘Blue Belle‘ in polypots.

Poached-egg plant, Limnanthes douglasii, will be grown at the front of the beds to attract hover-flys and add a bit of colour. Coriander will be grown in between the maincrop potatoes as a companion planting.

A sizeable chunk of the plot shown in the picture will be sown later this month with a nitrogen-fixing crop of Crimson Clover.  The flowers of this crop will atract bees, but will be cut down before it sets seeds and added to the compost bin.  Next year, the clover will be dug in and the area used to grow our brassicas.

Here’s our first asparagus spear of 2012 !

Our asparagus bed was planted in 2009 with crowns of the French variety ‘Dariana‘.  No spears were harvested in 2009,  two spears were taken from each plant in 2010 and last year we picked spears over a period of just two weeks.  This year, with the plants fully established, we will be harvesting asparagus spears right through to June.

We get some infestation with Asparagus Beetle, but by simply going round picking them off  seems to have prevented any damage.

Back in January we decided to sow peas and onions to see how they would perform in the unseasonably warm weather… see here .

As you may remember, the ‘unseaonably warm weather’ was soon followed by some seasonably freezing weather, with temperatures down to minus 19 degrees Celsius.  So we were amazed to find that the sowings actually survived and have germinated.  The picture below clearly shows the row of ‘Douce Provence‘ peas that have emerged, but you would have to look a bit more closely to see the tiny onion shoots.

We have also completed the last of our outdoor raised beds,  which have been constructed around the last of the brassicas. One bed will be used for celery and the other for our early straight-neck squashes.

The bare patch is where we have had to move the locker that was used to store all our nets and plastic sheeting.  Once this area has been levelled-off, we will grass it over with a few paving slabs laid down in front of the compost bin.

Finally, a big thanks to the vegblogs team for the gift certificate… it is very welcome indeed !

Having had problems with Leek Moths in previous seasons, we grew our leeks under an ‘enviromesh’ tunnel last year.  Unwisely, I decided to remove the covers after the first frosts of Autumn… the little bugs withstood the cold temperatures and caused a bit of damage.

Under the first section of the tunnel is a nursery bed where we have sown the following varieties : ‘Bleu Solaise‘, ‘Autumn Giant‘ and ‘Lyon 2‘.

In June, the young leeks will be transplanted into three rows under the tunnel to grow on until ready for picking from late-Summer through to early-Spring.

Our Autumn sown Broad Beans ‘Aquadulce‘ were badly hit by the severe frosts we experienced last month. We have probably lost 50% of the first row although the second row has survived better under the fleece.

So, this rainy morning, I have sown two more rows of Broad Beans, but this time trying the variety ‘Witkiem Manita‘ and we will grow Summer Savory alongside as a companion planting.

The area to the right, covered with black plastic sheeting is where we will be growing our climbing beans and the area to the left has been prepared for growing our root crops : Parsnips, Swede and Celeriac.

This is the interior of the polytunnel that we acquired last year and have since modified.

As you can see there are six raised beds with the floor area mulched with bark chippings.  We have a foldaway plastic pasting table from B&Q which we use for potting and this will be dismantled and stored away when we start planting our crops.  We have a variety of salad leaves growing in one of the beds (mustard, mizuna, spinach and pak choi) and a fine crop of rocket in the plant trough.

There is an old ‘mini greenhouse’ (without its cover) at the far end of the polytunnel where brassica and other seedlings will be grown on before being planted outside.

A beautiful day and a very full and productive session down at the patch this morning.

I planted a couple of rows of ‘Rocket’ potatoes which were then covered by cloche tunnels to protect from frost.  Speaking of which, our neighbour at the allotment has a maximum/minimum thermometer in his greenhouse  and the minimum recorded inside the greenhouse over the last couple of weeks was -9.5 degrees… which would explain why we lost all of the first-early seed potatoes that were chitting in the shed !  Fortunately a local supplier was selling 2 x 3kg bags of seed potatoes for £6.  I bought some more first-earlies and another bag of ‘Cara’ for later on.

We also store our harvested spuds in paper sacks in the allotment shed, so Heather spent some time sorting through these to remove any rotters.

We also planted 2 rows of ‘Centurion’ onion sets and prepared the beds where our leeks will be grown later in the year by adding plenty of chicken manure.  I gave the compost heap a turn and hoed-in some hoof, blood and bone around the garlic and shallots.