Potato blight, the weather, and Dew Points

Potato blight, the weather, and Dew Points

For the last year and a bit I have been recording the weather for various reasons but have many plans for how this data can be used.

A blog post by Deano Martin about Potato blight and compost tea not only raised a few interesting questions but brought to my attention that the weather has a large part to play with blight. Although I was well aware that blight is caused by warm damp conditions I knew little else and his blog post lead to some reading up upon the subject as well as much thought as every good blog post should induce.

I hadn't realised that there are some predefined conditions that would indicate a good chance of blight. Over the years two ways of predicting when blight may start have been developed.

The first one was called the Beaumont Period and is defined as:

Within a 48 hour period 46 hours must have been above 10 degrees C and humidity must have been over 75%

The other, and now preferred method, is called the Smith Period and is defined as:

Any 2 consecutive days where the minimum temperature was 10 degrees C or above and on each day humidity was 90% or above for 11 hours

Since I have been recording the weather details every 10 minutes I have plenty of data in which to work out previous periods when blight may have started but also predict when the next period will be. Working out what to do when you can predict when blight may start is another thing entirely.

A few hours of programming and I had knocked up a way of calculating both Smith and Beaumont methods and am able to compare both but also look back over last year and this year to see how often favourable conditions exist for Potato Blight (or Tomato blight for that matter). This should now enable me to predict, or should the word be forecast, when Blight may start. 

Running through the data I see that the conditions were met on the following days:

Possible blight days (Smith Period): 24th,25th and 25th,26th and 26th,27th of August 2013

Possible blight days (Beaumont Period): 10th,11th of September 2013

Possible blight days (Beaumont Period): 11th,12th and 21st,22nd of October 2013

Possible blight days (Beaumont Period): 27th,28th and 28th,29th of May 2014 

Possible blight days (Smith Period): 27th,28th and 28th,29th of May 2014

Possible blight days (Beaumont Period): 10th,11th of July 2014 

For a start we can see that the Smith Period occurs less often and is considered more accurate. The Smith Period has been used since the 1970's. (My data only goes back to May 2013 and is up to July 11th 2014).

What we can see, which seems to tally with the fact I didn't hear about people having blight as a problem last year, is that Blight was late and many people would have dug up their potatoes around then, leaving just the main crop to suffer, but this year it looks like we have had or might have a more early blight starting the end of May and with July being wet and humid we may well see a few more days which are favourable for blight, the Beaumont period has already been met so clearly conditions have come close.

Obviously these dates are only for my exact location.

Interestingly I have one or two plants which are turning yellow, and started looking poor around the end of May so I am wondering if it is Blight, although it also looks like a mineral deficiency. I'll need to look closer. I had put this down to them being planted directly into young manure and we have had a lot of rain and that bed got rather water logged several times. The bed that I have used for potatoes this year was hastily prepared by simply piling manure onto the ground to a depth of about 18 inches. Allowing the manure to compost in situ, ready to be dug over for an Autumn crop. I simply took advantage of the bed to see if it would grow potatoes in fresh manure, they started growing, so I planted more hoping for a bonus crop when otherwise I didn't have room for potatoes this year.

Knowing that humidity is key to when Blight may start, observing the weather in detail would be in keeping with Permaculture's principle of Observe and Interact. In Permaculture you are supposed to Observe 90% of the time and Act / Interact 10% and although I have been very critical of Permaculture, or to be more precise the way it is taught and the information provided within the Permaculture community, I won't go into this now, I do totally agree that you need to make lots of good observations, although I tend to observe and awful lot but also act much more than perhaps is considered good.

Having an enquiring mind and wanting to clarify observations and also get accurate data I started to wonder how accurate humidity readings taken from a weather station can be when applied to ground, or in this case, Potato canopy level, humidity.

The question is does a humidity reading of 90% at weather station height, also correspond to ground level? I can't take a reading at ground level easily because my weather station bits are up a pole on top of the greenhouse, 3.5 to 4 metres high. This got me thinking about Dew on the grass. 

The Dew Point

The Dew Point, which is the point that water will appear on surfaces, the ground or grass for example, is where the air can not hold any more water and will give up water and transfer it to an object or thing. When Relative Humidity reaches 100% this will happen. The Dew Point is the Temperature when Humidity is 100%

When we see Dew on the ground we know that the Humidity is 100% so, at that time, the weather station should show 100% humidity. It doesn't. At least mine doesn't. I know my readings are accurate to within a sensible margin and there is no reason why they wouldn't be so straight away I can tell something about this observation. Clearly the humidity is slightly higher at ground level, not at all surprising since there is a different micro climate in and around the grass compared to 4 metres above.

Temperature and Humidity are closely related. If the humidity is higher at grass level, as evidenced by the fact we have dew when the humidity reading I take 4 metres up suggests 90%, then the temperature is lower at grass level than we observe at weather station height. We can see that the grass level temperature is between 1 and 2 degrees C lower.

For what it is worth the Dew Point Formula is:

Dew Point Temp in Celsius = Temp - ((100 - Relative Humidity) / 5 )

If I have a reading of 15 Deg C and 90% humidity at 4 metres high but there is due on the ground the Dew Point would be 13 Deg C

This therefore raises the question, does the Smith Period of 2 days above 10 Degrees and 11 hours 90% humidity on each day take into account that readings are taken from above ground normally or should I be taking my readings from ground level? ie, does the Smith Period not mind that the micro climate within the Potato Canopy is different to the place where you measure weather? I'm guessing not.

I'm guessing not because the way the Met Office gives out Smith Period warnings will necessarily be based upon weather stations and not little sensors within potato fields.

If we therefore take into account that Blight may start when temperatures are below 10 Deg C or Humidity levels are higher than 90% at the plant level would we be able to prevent it easier or predict it better?

The other thing about taking readings from above the ground is that it takes no account of the wind. Air flow or wind, will be less around the plants than higher up, so another question to answer would be does blight happen always on these Smith Periods or is wind playing a big part?

Recording the weather in detail, observing, will allow me to look back at the conditions and answer some of these questions but first I need Blight....or perhaps not! Perhaps for me these questions are better left unanswered.

Sea Buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides)

Sea Buckthorn

I have already decided that I would like to try and grow some Sea Buckthorn in the field within the Chicken area, partly because it appears that chickens like to eat the berries but also because it'll give the Field another species for wildlife and I like the look of the plant.

More general reading about Sea Buckthorn suggests that there are various people pushing it as a super fruit which can have health benefits along with making a good drink, when sweetened and perhaps mixed with Apple juice. Another good reason to plant some as one of the purposes of the field is to have it produce our food.

As a volunteer for the Wildlife Trust I often have to help manage Sea Buckthorn by cutting it back as it can become an invasive plant. Having been regularly in contact with it something has become apparent to me which I needed to explain for myself...

Sea Buckthorn grows in groups of Female and Male plants. You don't get too many male plants next to female ones so when you look at an extensive area you see a big patch of female plants with loads of berries and, perhaps the other side of a path, a big area of male plants. Why is this?

After giving it some thought, driven by the permaculture principle of observe and interact, it would seem that the main way Sea Buckthorn propogates is by runners or rhizomes. Therefore a female plant will spring up next to a female plant. I have read that the genes of a plant only change by seed (something I need to read up on) and that cuttings are clones of the parent. I think the rhizomes must therefore create clones. A male plant's rhizomes will therefore produce more male plants. You therefore get groups or areas of each type just expanding.

The fact that there are male and female plants in relatively close proximity would lead you to think that a seed could drop close to, for example, a female plant, but grow as a male and therefore help to break up these big groups of same sex plants but in reality this doesn't appear to happen. While it may sometimes, in general, it doesn't. To me this would suggest that a seedling doesn't like growing in a shaded position, or at least struggles to grow, and is therefore out competed by the parent plant. New colonies need to be created by the berries dropping some distance away from the parent, probably by birds.

Reading about Sea Buckthorn you are told that it requires, or demands, full sunlight. The observations and my thoughts would therefore appear to be correct.

By observing things in nature it allows you to better understand something as opposed to just reading about it which then allows you to interact better with nature to produce and care for your plants better. 

For me, it is obvious that I need to plant female Sea Buckthorn to make sure I get berries and also not to allow it to become shaded. The location to plant therefore requires space for the plants to propagate via the rhizomes which also needs to be away from my boundary otherwise the rhizomes will simply go under the fence and annoy the neighbours. Knowing, because I have seen for myself, how invasive these plants can be also means that I will need access all around the shrub in order to break rhizomes to stop them spreading beyond the area that I wish them to be.

Sea buckthorn can tolerate a wide range of soil types but in the wild in this country, certainly in my area, they are only to be found on the coast on very well drained and sandy soil. Perhaps they prefer the salt in the air from the sea and as I'm reasonably close to the sea I hope that I can ignore the air and just concentrate on the soil. As I have plenty of sand left over from the greenhouse base I'll use this to prepare the soil which will also aid the drainage in the chicken area which was part of the field that suffers from surface flooding.

Hopefully I can provide a good enough soil and location for Sea Buckthorn so that it will grow well enough to provide plenty of berries for the chickens but also for us to include in drinks and anything else we can think of incorporating the berries.

Sea Buckthorn would appear to be an excellent plant to have for various reasons but must also be very hardy to live on the coast. With  harvesting berries and cutting back it must be remembered that this shrub is not only thorny as it's name suggests but in reality it aggressively attacks you, almost with deliberate targeting of exposed skin. My work in managing Sea Buckthorn has meant that I have become perforated  on many occasions and when working with others every conversation during the work starts with the word "Ouch!" so leather gloves for handling it are a must. 

Is Permaculture Something New?

Permaculture

While spending a fair few days ploughing through Google searching for information, especially blogs, recently trying to learn a bit more about vegetable growing, especially using this new-ish thing called Permaculture and coming across terms like Bio-Diverse Intensive Growing, Poly-Culture, No Dig, Forest Gardens, perennial vegetables, sustainability and all the other associated terms that seem to crop up, I began to get some Deja-Vu feelings.

Blog after blog, article after article, the people who seem to be interested in this subject, the people who are either wanting to take Permaculture ideas on board and those who practice it all tend to fit into the same few pigeon holes if I was to label those people. 

In general, Permaculturalists, if that is the correct term, seem to be interested in wildlife, conservation, they are frugal, enjoy a simpler life, like to grow organic food, generally not wealthy - indeed often at the poorer end of society, want to work with nature, looking to plant vegetables and other plants together rather than beds of single crops, often owning chickens or other small groups of animals and a few other generalizations I could mention. All of which sounds a bit familiar.

Cottages and Cottage Gardens

Over the years Cottages have come to mean different things. More recently a cottage is a small dwelling without land, normally in the country, or sometimes nothing more than a holiday home but in times gone by, before the Enclosure Acts, Cottages were actually defined as a dwelling with land. Often the land was between 1 and 4 acres. During Elizabethan times a cottage had to have at least 4 acres. Before that in medieval times it wasn't necessarily a small place but more of a small farm.  All in all, traditionally, Cottages and the romantic idea of the cottage garden has been somewhere to grow food and animals for food. The idea you may have about a cottage garden being mainly of flowers, often untidy, is also a more recent thing when people didn't have to grow their own food because as time has gone on more people could afford to buy it rather than work the land.

Through most of British history, middle ages onwards, up until relatively modern times, Cottage owners, Cotters, dare I use the term Cottagers, had to use their land, the Cottage Garden, to produce their food.

Cottage Gardens had to use all available space to grow food with flowers mainly there to bring in insects and pollinators so the crops could grow otherwise they will have been herbs for flavour or for medicinal purposes. Flowers would have been inter-planted with vegetables or visa-versa. Isn't this Poly-Culture? Fruit trees will have had flowers and vegetables under planted which sounds to me a bit like a forest garden. Cottage garden owners would have had to use the land sustainably, mend and make do, often with ailments which made digging difficult or impossible. They must have recycled their own kitchen waste and used the chicken and animal dung as compost and fertilizer, they must have observed nature in their own environment and put it to good use.

In so many ways the original cotters, cottagers, were the permaculturalists of their day.

I've come to the conclusion that there is nothing new about permaculture apart from sound bites and fancy new terms. It's more of a way for people to reject the modern way and return to a simpler more sustainable lifestyle.

I'm not putting it down, far from it, I've found my own perspective on it that is acceptable to me and therefore I've found another route into learning and adopting it which I find easier. I've also come to realise that everyone who adopts a permaculture way of life does it their own way.  Understanding that Permaculture is more a lifestyle rather than a new way of doing something has been a bit of a eureka moment.

Trees in Autumn

One of the principles of Permaculture is to observe and interact. 

When viewing a simple photo of the start of Autumn I thought about what makes the leaves change colour and this lead to wondering why the same tree species planted together changes leaf colour at different rates. How trees grow is a lot more complex than I am about to portray but for the reason of trying to answer the question of why 3 same trees planted together change colour differently it is sufficient to start the ball rolling.

Marston Vale Forest School 2013

Chlorophyll is responsible for the colour and it is this that enables the tree to take water and Carbon Dioxide from the environment and convert it into sugars needed to grow. As the Chlorophyll diminishes other colour pigments can be seen which give browns, yellows and reds.

I began to think that the amount of Chlorophyll in the leaves may well be directly linked to how healthy the tree is. Those changing colour first may have less Chlorophyll and therefore were perhaps growing slower. If this is the case then perhaps it is an indication of which trees in the garden need more nutrients and minerals or are suffering from competition and need attention or removing.

Some more reading is required. The picture was taken from Marston Vale Forest School

More Wild Flowers Sown

Yesterday I pulled the seed from many of this years wild flowers from around the pond and sprinkled the seed over the wild grass area. Some Corncockles had already germinated on their seed heads. I'm rather hoping that enough will take to have made it worth while as the cut grass is about 5 to8cm in height but it rained immediately after so presumably many will have been washed down to the soil level.

Cornflowers were the hardest to sow as their little seed heads don't separate easily so in the main I just split the heads into 3 or 4 bits and dropped them onto the ground. The Marigolds were the same as they were all damp.

Most of the Poppy seed has already been blown out of their seed heads so only a few of these were used.

I think that I will sow a few trays of Corncockles and Cornflowers into trays and leave them in the greenhouse so they can be added in the spring and no doubt I will broadcast sow more seed then as well.

Sweet pea seed was sown all along the fence line so they have something to grow up as well as Sunflower seed, although I did spread a fair few all over the place.

Everlasting flowers, Helichrysums, may not be wild flowers but since they last so long I thought I'd sprinkle a few around the place for added colour. Last year we started a few off in the greenhouse and transplanted them but they took so easily that I think the seed will take readily.

Compost heap

Muck heap 12th October 2013

I also turned over the compost heap/manure heap a little yesterday and it was just a little. I forked the bottom edges to the top and hope to do this at least once per week. Just 10 minutes a time.

Greenhouse

The Tomatoes are still going strong and there were about 100 tomatoes, green and red yesterday but the foliage had stopped much of the light getting to them and since there is so much less sun now I stripped the foliage back considerably, as I have done 3 or 4 times this year although I haven't been stopping any new trusses from forming which has allowed many many more tomatoes to form. The Chilli Peppers are still doing OK and I hope to keep these going all year to see how they perform next year as I understand they are perennials.  I will also try to keep several tomato plants going also, partly because a local permaculture chap said he had picked a ripe tomato on Christmas day last year and partly because they are perennial. Could be an interesting experiment.

Before

After

First Year Review

It is nearly a year since we first saw our new house and the little field. In November 2012 the field was a bare paddock for a horse although was classified as agricultural land. 

November 2012

After a very wet summer one of the questions we asked was does the field flood - no was the answer. Not that it would have mattered much. The question was only asked as it seemed like one of those questions to ask.

Shortly after moving in, within days, it rained and became apparent that the field did indeed flood. Speaking to other people we found out that it always floods.

December 2012

We quickly realized that the flooding was caused by the fact that the soil was clay and years of a horse trampling over it had compacted the surface to the extent that water could not soak into the ground.

With the main priority settling in and getting ready for Christmas little work was done outside although one outdoor priority was to secure the property from the road, stopping the kids from straying. We didn't move in for 10 days or so allowing some decorating to be done. Mid January saw the first fencing go in and the start of old fencing coming down.

The main reasons for wanting a field was so that the kids would have room to play but also so that we could grow our own fruit and vegetables and start to have a more self sufficient life style, not total self sufficiency but more a case of a simpler lifestyle whereby we grow as much food as possible.   The idea of permaculture and wildlife has been in the back of our minds for quite a long time and a field gives us the opportunity of fulfilling these ideas.

The first plant went in on January 10th, a Gooseberry Bush, although this soon became rabbit fodder.

With flooding and now rabbits it became apparent that we had a few hurdles to over come, but of course the weather started to get in the way with heavy snow on the 15th of January. 

January 15th 2013

January 27th 2013

February 2013

The thawing of snow means more water and even bigger flooding. In places the depth was around 8cm so what was needed was a drainage strategy. We saw no point in fighting nature but instead working with it seemed a better idea and if there was going to be water then it needed to be managed and used as a feature. We decided to dig drainage channels which lead into a pond. The idea being that the water can sit in the channels and feed the pond but before this could happen our green house arrived. A 12ft x 6ft wooden greenhouse had been chosen with plastic poly-carbonate windows which seemed a safer choice with kids.

February 2013

The drainage channels just seemed to happen with very little overall design but in general the channels were dug from around the deepest flood areas away to the drier ground. Along the way they bent this way and that with curves and one part even formed a circle with the idea that it could form the basis of a kids den, perhaps with a living Willow fence growing up around it. 

 

March 2013

March 24th 2013

Potato Patch

Fruit Garden

This is at the back corner of the field with the muck heap at the top of the picture. The channel is a spade depth which gives some idea of the amount of water that we have to deal with. Other areas of flooding were dealt with by simple digging the ground to allow water to drain downwards with one of these areas turning into a potato patch. At the same time as digging we were also beginning to clear rubbish and build bonfires to clear an awful lot of wooden fences and old dog runs. Late in March more snow arrived but as it thawed the drainage outline can be seen along with the pond although the pond wasn't finished. By now we had planted a few fruit trees, Apple, Crab, Bullace and a couple of Pear. The middle of March saw the first lot of seeds sown in the greenhouse, Broad Beans, Tomatoes and Leeks and a few Herbs. The beginning of April saw the pond finished, some Hawthorn planted and a couple of Hazel bushes along with Willow to start a hedge on the left hand side of the field, as well as the fruit garden started by transferring Gooseberry, Red Current, Black Current and Strawberries from the old allotment and by 9th April the seeds in the greenhouse had germinated and our vegetable season had started. By mid April the boundary fence had been rabbit proofed with chicken wire and 1100 small plastic tie wraps to hold it onto the main stock fencing. Potatoes also go in around now as well as the Broad Beans planted out. The latter half of April sees an Onion bed go in near the greenhouse and the Chickens moved to the back corner of the field. April is mainly taken up with digging constantly which is back breaking work trying to break down clay clods. A Runner Bean bed as well as a thin bed field side of the fruit garden.

The beginning of May is still seeing frosts but despite this we have planted out Runner Bean seed as a test to see if they germinate but at the same time sow a load in the greenhouse. The main vegetable patch near the greenhouse is expanding. Around the 5th of May a few pond plants are added, Marsh Marigolds, Purple Loosestriffe, White Water Lilly, Yellow Iris and some Canadian Pond Weed (not that we particularly wanted the Canadian stuff but we'll have to see how it goes). A couple of solar fountains, one quite expensive one and also a tiny cheap thing.

Add caption

The pond had loads of packets of wild flower seeds sprinkled all over the 2 banks. Corn Cockles, Corn Flowers, Corn Marigolds, Common Fleabane, Ox Eyed Daisies, Forget Me Nots and probably 10 others. The idea is that it will not only form a sink for the drainage water but also a wildlife pond with the edges kept as wild as possible. A bit of a focal point to the garden and somewhere that sounds and looks nice to sit with a coffee. From now on we spend a lot of time sitting here as the hedge along the roadside provides fantastic cover for birds as they use it not only for nesting but also as a corridor. We are surrounded by fields and wooded scrub areas which attract no end of different species of birds, many of which use the pond for a drink. Hopefully the pond will create a lot of insects for the birds as well as a lot of pollinators. Hopefully there will be a lot of good insects that can help fight off the bad pests that will no doubt eat the vegetables. We are giving nature a chance at balancing itself so that we can attract Frogs, Toads and Newts to eat slugs as well as bees, hover flies and butterflies to pollinate. 

Back in March I started to volunteer for the Lincs Wildlife Trust and not only have I been learning about birds, plants and habitats but also the wider ecology. The ideas of Permaculture, Vegetable growing and wildlife all seem to compliment each other along with the idea of making everything relatively wild and therefore easy maintenance although to start with nothing seems easy as ponds need digging and the soil, or clay, needs improving but subsequent years should be much easier. 

7th June 2013 main Veg area

By the beginning of May Onions, Garlic, Dwarf Broad Beans are all growing and a few small raised beds have been put in since I simply can't dig enough beds for everything and the small raised beds are a quick fix.

The half acre field is split into two main areas, Veg and grass playing area nearest the house and the other half is left to grow wild, with the pond and fruit tress, muck heap and chickens. We expect the  vegetable and fruit areas to keep on growing in size each year which will slowly diminish the grass playing area. Grass paths are cut through the wild area but the whole of the main grass play area is cut each week.

End of fruit garden June 2013

The next area that is worked on is at the end of the fruit garden behind the summer house which is boxed in with 4ft old fencing. We decided to use this old herb garden for Sprouts and Broccoli since there is nowhere else for them to go right now and this'll save a lot of digging. A big fire later, many bags of compost and a lot of weeding has made a nice area.  Runner Beans were planted at the back of the summer house along with a few leaks and a Tomato plant added just to test how well it would do outside. A lot of things we do are experiment brought about by necessity. Tomatoes outside because the greenhouse is full with the others, Sprouts and Broccoli planted closely just because I have a lot of them and not much space.

11th June 2013

Fencing was replaced with chicken wire to stop rabbits but removing the old fencing brought so much more light to this area. By the 17h June the wild grass area is beginning to show a carpet of White Clover with large patches of Buttercups. Everything is now growing very rapidly with the runner bean experiment of sowing even though frosts were about has showed good results although I doubled up on all the Runner Bean stations with beans started in the greenhouse just to be on the safe side. The potatoes, broad beans and onions are obviously very happy. The wild flowers around the pond don't seem to be doing much and seem patchy at best, luckily I also started some off in the greenhouse and have planted them out. 

I

17th June 2013

Old Duck pond area 24th June 2013

took the decision from day 1 to take a photo from the same upstairs, dirty, window which has turned out a fantastic way to see progress but will also form a video at some stage, a bit like a time lapse video. Enlarging the photo shows the clover and at the top right the patch of buttercups. Without the time lapse things just grow without you noticing them. The old duck pond area behind the old chicken coop, the caravan, was taken down and a few beds created by putting down cardboard and then a load of manure. Instant beds which is a bit of an experiment because they are only a few inches deep and underneath is clay but once again we have not enough time or energy to dig and there are more onions needed to go in as well as the Sweetcorn which is a bit pot bound after having been started in the greenhouse. I had previously weeded most of it and dug half of it but it still needed much more work so these beds came in handy. 

1st July 2013

By the beginning of July the clover was an amazing sight and  together with the longer grass provided some height to the otherwise flat field. Most of July flew by without a great deal being done since paid work got in the way so the only time left was Sundays and that was left for mowing the grass and paths.

4th July 2013

19th July 2013

Around the 7th July the Corn Flowers around the pond started to show. Just a few but a welcome sight non the less. By mid July flowers were appearing everywhere and I remembered that I'd sown some Poppy seed as they springing up in unexpected places. I do remember now that I sprinkled wild flower seeds in some odd places, such as in the fruit garden as I thought that it would be better to have flowers rather than weeds between the Current bushes and Raspberries. The Raspberries came from the old allotment but they had their roots exposed for a few months over the winter as we had dug them up but not got around to planting them in their new home for ages. Some grew but most didn't.

Around the 19th July the carpet of clover had gone although some remained the overall effect had been diminished. Unexpectedly a couple of different Toadflaxes and Pansys appeared within the fruit garden, in the front garden and at the edge of the potato bed. We think these are left overs from a previous flower garden although possible they may have simply self seeded by other means. Very pretty though.

30th July 2013

By the end of July the pond was in full bloom and the field was probably at it's best but from now on things slowly start to look tatty. It'll be interesting to see next year when everything is more established if things last longer or perhaps we'll need to plant a few more different flowers to keep the overall look at it's best for longer.

13th October 2013

In early October the wild grass area was cut, not as short as the paths but cut enough to tidy up and hopefully allow us to seed these areas with wild flowers. Whilst cutting dozens of frogs and some toads were seen along with caterpillars which was good to see and really brought home why wildlife trusts tell you to leave areas of gardens to grow wild. The wild flower seeds were broadcast sown. The muck heap has about 4 trailer loads rapidly composting down ready for the spring, autumn vegetable patches have already been sown with Onions, Broad bean and Garlic and we are now preparing for winter, and will be digging more beds and building upon this last year.