Seasonal crop rotation in progress: first the chooks, then barrow loads of our beautiful compost; straw, a string line, labels and seed. Well, in fact the chooks didn’t go into the root veg bed & nor did the compost….as root veg like a ‘hungry’ soil….one that had attention lavished upon it the previous season, which it did, before we planted the fruiting veg at the beginning of spring. It smells as beautiful as it looks and this afternoon we planted rows of parsnip, beetroot and carrot seed.
The root veg follow the fruiting veg from summer, but as you can see, we can’t plant the entire bed, as aubergines are still doing their thing, and will be for some time to come. I simply can’t discard fruit-bearing plants that we’ve put so much effort into growing; and with the possibility of even one more aubergine to bring to our table, they will remain in position. Long may they bear, with their delicate mauve flowers much preferring these autumn days to set their fruit. Similarly, I gave a couple of tomatoes a severe cut-back at the weekend; and we’ve re-arranged their structure to climb, hopefully ensuring we have a trickle of fresh tomatoes to eat for a couple of months to come.
The brassica bed was also planted out today….grey/blue/purple seedlings now peek from their nests like so many Easter eggs or jewels in straw. Now this bed DID have the full treatment of chooks followed by compost followed by straw. We need to move these tiny beauties along now as quickly as we can while the days are still warm, so that ultimately, at the right moment, their leaves may be touched by frost to sweeten them. They’ve been covered with net to (hopefully) keep the white cabbage moth at bay, and showered with worm liquid to give them a boost.