23rd September
Last week was a busy week of rotovating and re planting tunnels.
We had the five thousand Radicchio and five thousand Pak Choy needing planted, and the lambs lettuce seeds arrived.
With space in the cosy tunnel where the courgettes had been, and two other tunnels that had mixed lettuce and french beans in them we now had some room to get these plants planted.
It takes a morning to rotovate that amount of ground, but by Tuesday we had started planting.
By Thursday we had them all planted, plus the Lambs lettuce direct sown and some more oriental mix direct sown, the plan is these two will be mixed together for salad bags.
Seemingly they grow quite well in colder weather, although last week we had every day with temperatures over 20 degrees.
With nice fresh young plants planted, it was time to protect them from the Rabbits that have been causing mayhem this year.
They have been eating through the vented sides of our newest tunnel.
The sides have a tight woven net for ventilation, the rabbits are just eating holes in it and having a party.
I had bought two fifty metre long four foot high rabbit netting.
I had expected it to be a quick job to go round fixing the net to the tunnel.
But it took two afternoons, hopefully that's all the tunnels protected now, we now have rabbit netting everywhere.
Out in the field I had the bed former going again, this will be that last time it is out this year.
The beds that we had the early spring cabbage and summer Savoy cabbage in have been sitting empty waiting for broad beans to get planted in.
This is the time of the year to get broad beans planted for an early next year harvest.
It is a gamble with the weather.
The broad beans will come up through the soil before winter arrives.
They are a hardy crop, but sometimes we do get too cold weather, and they die off.
But they are worth the gamble, they are quite a cheap seed, and quick to plant, seeds go straight in the ground so no blocking.
And we do not need to weed them, because at this time of the year they outgrow the weeds.
