Mushrooms and Poly Tunnel

Mushrooms and Poly Tunnel

Earlier on in the year I tried growing mushrooms.

Previous posts:

Mushroom Part 1

Mushroom part 2

I didn't think that the temperature was right and gave up on them but over the last couple of days they have appeared. I say they but more correctly "it" appeared.

One mushroom has grown:

It shows that it worked but hasn't exactly been a great success. I think I'll put the idea of growing mushrooms outdoors to the back of my mind for now :)

The poly tunnel on the other hand is going great. Everything is growing strongly even to the point where a harvest can now be taken from the salad leaves. The Spring Onions have germinated as well as the radish. The garlic, although not showing yet has grown some roots and is about to poke through the soil and the field beans sown in a corner to see if they will fruit earlier than outdoors have started to grow.

(Click to enlarge pictures)

On the left the Oak leaf lettuce and Mizuna are going very well as is the beetroot, on the right the Chard and Pak Choi are also growing very strongly.

In the middle the Spinach, Radish, Garlic, Spring Onion, Strawberry and Chinese Cabbage are doing just as well.

What is immediately noticeable is that none of the leaves have been nibbled so everything is looking perfect. The Cape Gooseberry has even flowered. It's only been a few weeks since we put the Poly Tunnel in (see: Poly Tunnel Post) but the extra warmth and humidity has made a big difference as has the fact that it hasn't needed watering much since the humidity and lack of a drying wind has kept the soil moist. The roof of the Tunnel collects water droplets and automatically waters the beds as well, which is a nice bonus.

Today has been a rather breezy day but the Tunnel's plastic isn't noticing the wind much which bodes well for the much windier days ahead. This week the max temp reached 30 deg C and the minimum went down to 1.2 deg C so no frosty conditions inside the tunnel even though a few people have commented that they have had a ground frost in the area. It is now noticeable that the day time sun is not effective enough to warm the soil to keep the night time temp higher than the outside by the end of the night and I think that after a few hours of darkness any residual heat has dissipated by midnight.

My next job, and probably tonight, will be to put a heater inside set to the anti-frost setting, on for 2 hours from midnight to see if that will keep the inside temp a degree or two above the outside temp. The tunnel is probably too big for the heater to raise the temperature enough so that it can turn off the heat. If it fails to heat up quickly and be able to turn off then it will be a waste of time as the cost of the electricity will be a waste of energy but it's worth a test. A 2 kW heater on for 2 hours is going to cost 26p a night but if it can manage to do it's job and only be on for 45 minutes then at under 10p a night it might just extend the growing season for a few more weeks before the proper cold weather sets in. Once the proper cold spell starts the idea of a heater becomes silly, price and energy wastage wise but if the plants can just be allowed to grow for another 2 weeks then the amount of salad leaves we get and can sell will make it worth while. The same will apply at the end of the winter. If we can get the temperature up by just a degree or 2 during the night late February and the day time sun starts to heat the tunnel then we might get a months head start on some crops for next year. If we can sell the leaves (as we currently do) a couple of weeks later and a few weeks earlier than the other Alford Country Market growers then we'll have one month per year being the only one selling these products and therefore no competition.

One of the problems with selling home grown produce is that when winter starts the customers will be forced back into the super markets to buy their greens for juicing. By postponing that by a few weeks you can keep them loyal for longer and they can keep their habit of buying from us. By starting to sell the greens earlier in the new year using a poly tunnel we will have more time to pull them back in and get them back in the habit of buying locally again before the main season starts.I can see the possibility that once the regular customers go back to the supermarket over winter they may not start to come back to the country market by the time we start selling again but if we have some of what they want before the start of the main season we can start to grab them back one by one slowly so they are already on the look out and thinking about the country market when our main produce starts coming through. Instead of being a slow start to the main season we may be able to get up to full speed selling quicker....anyway, if we don't try we'll never find the thing that works for us :)

Still hoping that the money and time spent on the poly tunnel will pay big dividends.    

More Seeds Sown and Sea Buckthorn

Today I managed to sow a row of Spring Onions, Pak Choi and Chinese Kale in the main vegetable bed. Another job that needed doing.

Pak Choi (Shanghai)

I'm not too sure whether the Pak Choi will work outside unprotected but like everything it will be an experiment. I've no idea about the flavour but if Tesco's are selling it then it has obviously become more popular and is supposed to be good in salads and stir fries and I think maybe a good addition to the vegetable patch as it'll give us some variety since I have normally stayed away from  growing "foreign" veg but if we are to move into being as self sufficient as possible then we need as many things as possible that can be grown all year round.  I've read different names for Pak Choi and there appears to be various different varieties but often it appears to be called Bok Choy or Chinese Cabbage with some saying it needs to be grown under cloches and others saying it is easy to grow with no other mentions of care.

The seed packet says that it needs to be kept moist otherwise a dry spell will cause it to bolt but it also says that you can and should pick the baby leaves to encourage growth and goes on to mention that it can be cut up to 4 times and will re-grow. I don't know if this means the leaves you pick will re-grow or wether it will re-grow if you pick all the leaves in one go. Time will tell I'm sure.

Spring Onions (White Lisbon)

Spring Onions have always failed when I have tried them. I presume something eats them or maybe I forget they are Spring type and leave them to become big Onions but hopefully by writing what I have planted and where I'll remember this time. It says on the packet that these are quick growing and if you sow them in October they will be ready by March/April - that doesn't sound quick to me. Anyway, another vegetable for a stir fry or salad and sandwiches. I have sown these in between the rows of Durham Early Cabbage simply to cram a bit more out of that bed.

Chinese Kale (Kailaan)

Something else I've never grown before but once again the packet says the flowering stems and buds can be used is salads and stir fries. The larger stems need peeling and cooking. Other thing tried for variety and once again sown within the Durham Early Cabbage and White Sprouting Broccoli to make more use of the bed. Sowing was supposed to be up until early autumn but it is still mild and worth a try.

I think I'll try sowing a few of each in the greenhouse as well later today.

Bedfordshire Champion Onions

I had found an old seed packet, pre opened and 5 years old. It says to sow in Spring but I've sown 3 seed trays worth in the greenhouse just to see what happens. If they grow then I may be able to transplant them outside in the spring. I've bought a new packet of these ready for the Spring so this opened packet wasn't doing any good just sitting in a box so it has to be worth the experiment.

Lambs Lettuce (Corn Salad, Valerianella locusta) 

I have sown 2 medium sized pots of Lamb's Lettuce since when reading loads of other people's blogs I keep coming across it. Apparently it has a nutty flavour and can be grown all year round although it is an annual. It has many nutrients and goes well in a salad.  According to Wikipedia it has been commercially available in the UK since the 1980's but has been eaten, or foraged, for centuries before and is popular with the French. Good enough for me then.

I have read that it can be very invasive and in the Spring when I sow some outside I think it may be a contender for being confined to a small raised bed.

Cauliflower

Cauliflower has to be one of my favourite vegetables and I don't remember growing it before so a couple of seed trays were sown in the greenhouse. The packet said it could be sown in the Spring or indoors during October. I'm hoping I can grow enough of these to freeze a load so we can eat them during the year.

Mizuna Lettuce

Another one I've not tried before but it said can be sown in the Autumn and has a peppery taste. It follows the salad and stir fry theme I seem to have today and will hopefully open my eyes to yet another variety. 

Sea Buckthorn

 I was reading Deano's blog post http://sustainablesmallholding.org/diploma/project-7/ about a Chicken scavenging design  and in there a comment someone made mentioned Sea Buckthorn being something chickens liked to eat and since one of my duties as a Wildlife Trust volunteer is to help manage the Sea Buckthorn I thought I'd pinch a few tiny plants when we had to remove them from an area. Normally the bushes are burnt but I pulled 4 or 5 tiny plants that came off of runners and have stuck them into pots of compost. Hopefully they have enough roots on them to take if they are kept well watered. It must be the wrong time of year to try this but if successful then I was hoping to grow them on a bit before adding them to the chicken run. Hopefully the chickens can supplement their diet, save us money on chicken food and give them a more varied environment. Deano had commented that his soil wasn't right for Sea Buckthorn but I think if they take then I will dig a patch and make the soil right, which is light well drained and sandy.

Sea Buckthorn can be a very invasive bush but if it did grow too well and try and take over then all that is needed is cutting back or digging bits up which isn't the end of the world considering the field would benefit from this pretty bush plus the branches and leaves are very good at fire starting so I could even get a supply of kindling.  The Buckthorn has male and female plants so fingers crossed I have some female plants, if not I'll have to try again in the Spring.

The berries are very popular with birds which will help make the field a wildlife haven plus they can be used for food so they seem like a good plant to me.