Winter salads in, blackcurrant planted

Blackcurrant 'Ebony'

Bed five now has lamb's lettuce and land cress planted - two rows of each. The blackcurrant has been planted too, with plenty of compost and some slow-release fertiliser in a hole much larger than the root ball.

The seedlings spotted yesterday are definitely cabbages, they are in neat rows where I planted them, and several more peas are showing. One broad bean seedling is just poking out of the soil too.

Alliums in, and seedlings spotted

Bed seven has now been planted with onion sets (senshyu yellow) and garlic (Avignon), half the bed for each. I planted the onions in four rows, the first two at a spacing of 10cm apart in rows 10cm apart. These looked a bit cramped, and I also didn't have enough onions to fill the remaining quarter of the bed, so the last two rows are 12cm apart and have onions spaced at 12cm in the row. I'll see which do better. The sets varied in size considerably - the smallest were less than 2cm high, and the largest about 4cm. I tried to mix large and small ones evenly over the area.

The garlic had huge cloves, and I had half a bed (about 6' by 2') for them, so I planted them about 20cm apart. The two bulbs of garlic had about a dozen cloves each, but a couple were withered or mouldy, so I ended up planting 21.

While doing some inspection and hand-weeding of beds one and three (legumes and brassicas) I found two pea shoots starting to poke out of the soil, and about ten of what I think are the cabbages (although I could be mistaken, maybe they're weeds.) No sign of the broad beans yet, but they are planted deeper than the peas, and may be slower to show. Those two beds, and the alliums, are covered with garden fleece. I hope this will speed their early growth and keep cats and birds off them.

The first sowing of rye now has quite a few blades 2-4" tall, and the second sowing has started to show some root growth. (Beds two and four, respectively).

Rye in bed two

Beds five and six

In progress...

... and finished.

Beds five and six are done now, and with the help of the soil sieve the top 6" or so are largely stone-free. The soil is soft and well-aerated, with some structure - it forms crumbs about the size of a pea quite easily. Looking at descriptions of soil types in a gardening book I think it counts as a sandy loam.

The first signs of germination of the rye appeared today - a lot of the seeds have sprouted tiny roots. There is no sign that birds or mice have eaten any, so I sowed bed four with the rest of the rye.

I have marked out the last two beds with string, and I will plant them with alliums as soon as they've been dug. Beds seven and eight are noticeably sunnier than five and six, so the alliums are going in those. I need to find plants that can be sown now, and don't require full sunlight, to go in five and six. If there's nothing suitable I may sow more rye, or try another green manure crop.

Modified plan

Bed one now has 60 peas in two rows, and I've planted cabbage seeds in half of bed three. Having done that, I realised that 6' x 6' is too wide, and it is going to be difficult to get to the plants in the middle.

I've modified the plan for the higher area, beds five to eight, and I am going to make them only 4' wide. I'm also going to leave a small path in the middle to make access easier, so the new plan looks like this. Having a path between beds six and seven also means that I can grade and plant five and six before having to dig the last two, which is good because I have some Japanese onions and garlic which I want to put in soon.

Yesterday I bought a soil sieve, which speeds up the stone removal process, and leaves a lovely fine tilth, which will be good for the alliums and also for carrots.

Another job done today was removing the large sapling near bed one - I thought it was a maple, but in fact it was a sycamore. I was thinking of planting a hazelnut tree there, but reading up on them I find that they are self-infertile, so I would need two. There are also a lot of squirrels in the neighbourhood, so it might be a lot of money and effort with no crop to show for it. This part of the plan requires further thought, but there's no hurry - I don't think this is the right time of year for planting new trees.

First sowing

Bed one now has 18 broad beans, bed two planted with rye.

Yesterday I finished digging the first patch. Bed four was easier than the others after a small amount of rain softened the turf. I tried grading the whole area (making it level and even), and found that I hadn't dug bed one properly.

Today I forked over bed one, to remove roots and stones, and put string up to show the boundaries.

I decided to change the plan described in the last post. Initially I was going to put rye in beds one and three, thinking that because they are sunniest, I would improve the soil over winter with the green manure crop, and then plant my favourite veg in them. I changed my mind, because the whole area is reasonably sunny, and this is likely to be more of a constraint for winter crops. I also decided to put the brassicas in bed three, because it is more sheltered and they can suffer from too much wind, particularly in light soil. The new plan is thus:

1. Legumes, initially broad beans (Aguadulce) and peas (Meteor).
2. Winter grazing rye, a green manure.
3. Brassicas, initially kale (Nero di Toscana) and cabbage (Advantage F1).
4. Winter grazing rye.

I have planted 18 broad beans in bed one, and scattered rye on bed two. I will see if the rye germinates before planting more in bed four, as I want to see if birds come and eat it before planting all my seeds.

Third bed

I've drawn a diagram (not very accurately) of the layout I want to make - the eastern beds (1-4) at the bottom of the garden are on slightly lower ground, and receive the best of the sunlight, so I've started there. So far 1-3 are de-turfed and have had the bigger pebbles removed. Tomorrow I intend to dig and de-pebble bed 4,  and grade the whole patch. That'll be a big job, but I can't plant in any of them until it's done. After that, I'll sow seeds in all four beds:

1. Winter grazing rye, a green manure.
2. Brassicas, initially kale (Nero di Toscana) and cabbage (Advantage F1).
3. Winter grazing rye.
4. Legumes, initially broad beans (Aguadulce) and peas (Meteor).

The kale should have been sown by the end of September according to the packet, but with the weather being very warm (and forecast to stay warm for a while) it should be OK, I hope. That's why I'm in a hurry to get the first four beds dug, de-pebbled, and graded.

I'm not sure yet about the higher section (beds 5-8) - I will probably plant alliums, try to prepare a bed for potatoes, and do at least one and maybe two more beds of rye. This is just a place-holder and soil improver until it's time for the main planting season in Spring.

Horrible looking thing, with glove finger for scale.

De-turfing the third bed today, I saw  more ants than in either of the first two beds, and I saw black ants among the red ones. Some ants steal the pupae of nearby ant colonies of different species, and when they hatch the abducted ants work in the abductors' colony. I assume that's what happened here.

Right in the middle of the ant colony, among all the eggs and grubs, I found this horrible looking thing. Looking at images of larvae on the web, I think it was a stag beetle larva. I say was, because it was gone by the time I'd taken the camera back inside - I expect a bird ate it. I'm sorry about that, because they're a declining species.