7th October

 Last week we had a week of nice dry weather, so I got out in the field with the discs on the auld Fergie and went through all the beds that we have harvested out of.

The discs do a great job at chopping everything up, and leaves the ground great for going through with the bed former.

The bed former then leaves really smooth beds for planting in.

We have already planted four beds of broad beans that are two hundred and fifty meters long, each bed has three rows in it.

Last week we planted another four beds the same length, and this week we are going to plant another four.

They will come up through the soil over winter, and are very hardy, if we don’t get really artic conditions over the winter we should have some nice broad beans early in the spring.

And as I have said before they are a great crop for helping the field, they fix nitrogen in the soil.

So, they are a good crop for over winter to grow even if you aren’t trying to get a crop of off it.

In the tunnels we have all the Pak Choy and Radicchio planted, we have them covered with fleece, they do grow well in colder climate so they should be getting harvested around Christmas time.

Seemingly Radicchio is a favourite for slugs, we know they love Pak Choy, so to try and solve that we have sprinkled vermiculite in a line around the beds that the plants are planted in.

We know this keeps the slugs of the cucumbers, and so far, it is working, time will tell.

This week I am going to do a wee trial.

Usually, we block spring onions then plant them in the tunnels for an early spring crop.

We are still going to do this.

But I am going to direct sow 6 ninety-meter rows on between the Radicchio and Pak Choy.

If it works that will be great, time will tell.

Also, next week, we have Twenty tonne of compost arriving, so we will have to fork out two trailers of smelly compost, that’s about 2 tonnes, into one tunnel that the cucumbers were in, then get it rotovated for planting the eight thousand spring cabbage that is ready to get planted.

We will only get half of them in the cucumber tunnel, the rest will go into the tomato tunnel when we get that ready.