Manure, Sprouts, Oca and Cape Gooseberries

Manure, Sprouts, Oca and Cape Gooseberries 

Today was a fantastic winters day to be preparing beds for next spring. Because of the clay soil that we have I spread manure 12 inch deep across several beds so it will act as a weed suppressant and can have time to break down. The beds had 18 inch to 2ft of manure added earlier in the year and bit by bit the soil, although still clumps of clay are everywhere, is becoming far more workable. Large amounts of dark humus / compost are now evident throughout the beds.

Fresh Manure

I gave the beds a quick dig over before piling on 60 wheel barrow loads of manure on top and can see that although full of worms the manure didn't get mixed in with the clay by worms, insects and plant roots. Maybe over time the organic material will find it's way into the clay but over the shorter time scales digging is certainly needed to mix the clay with organic material.

Just pile it high!

The first layer of manure added earlier in the year hasn't composted as well as the layer above because it got water logged where the water sat on top of the clay, again another reason to continue digging as opposed to a no-dig method. Digging the clay, no matter how deep leaves a plough pan which water can't easily penetrate and although I have dug fairly deep it is clear that from now on I must raise the level of the soil to avoid the plant roots sitting in water. This water caused problems with the potatoes this year and meant I had to lift them a month or so too early. The crop was small and wouldn't store.

I must have had 30 tonnes of manure delivered since late spring and apart from a decent compost heap most of the manure has just disappeared into the beds without raising the ground level by much and I have agreed to continue taking 3 or 4 tonnes a month for the next year. I'm sure this will all be of great benefit in the coming years.

Areas that I have dug over and not applied manure just compact again under the soils own weight and become water logged so I'll be digging more areas and applying manure this winter even if those areas will ultimately end up as lawn.

Sprouts

Not many but enough

The 3 sprout plants that survived slugs and pigeons have been attacked by rabbits last night so I have harvested what ever I could. The plants had a huge number of sprouts on them, sadly though half were nibbled and one plant was cut in half. Since sprouts are a favourite of mine I'm going to put a lot more effort into them next year although this year we will have plenty for Christmas dinner, shame they couldn't be left for a couple more weeks as now we have to process them and freeze them for a fortnight rather than deal with them fresh.

Oca

Oca

The main bed that I manured today contained 6 Oca plants that had withered due to frost. The tubers are rather small and many are a bit green. I'll need to read up now to see what I do with them. The other 6 plants are in another bed and I'll lift them later in the week. Had they grown a bit better there would have been a good number of tubers. I was given the seed tubers by Anni Kelsey (https://annisveggies.wordpress.com/) and I'll be putting more effort into Oca next year should these taste OK.

Cape Gooseberries

Almost ripe Cape Gooseberries

I sowed Cape Gooseberries last spring and planted them out into a bed, rather late, and was worried that they weren't going to ripen. In November I tried one and it was still green and extremely tart / bitter but today I noticed that some have ripened. The couple I ate were fantastic and if I can leave them another week or so the rest should ripen since they are all almost ready. These are supposed to need a lot of sun and should really be in a green house but despite this year not having much sun, (August was particularly bad), they are going to be a success. Next year I'll be planting many many more and will have one or 2 in the green house. It's the first time I have ever tried them, tasted or grown, and have been extremely surprised how nice they are and can't think why I have never tried them before. They could easily become my favourite fruit and taste like a very very sweet tomato and are the size of a large cherry and orange in colour. The taste has changed so much in a few weeks, last time I tried a green one it made my tongue curl and my eyes roll and I had totally given up thinking about them until today. That's the best surprise I have had out of our food growing attempts!

The Cape Gooseberries alone have now made me long for spring when I can sow some more. It'll be a long wait I think :)

Today's Sun Graph
How sunny today was in Watts per Metre Squared - how much power was in the sun:

Infrared and Visible light readings

The above graphs show patchy sun in the morning but no clouds in the afternoon. A perfect day would look like a semi-circle.

Self Sufficiency

Self Sufficiency

I'm well aware that this isn't going to happen but during a part of last year our weekly shopping bill reduced from approx. £100 per week down to approx. £20 per week for a couple of months which is a huge saving. 

Not all the savings came from us producing our own food but because we needed to go shopping less we also ended up not buying those "things on a whim" simply because we weren't in a shop.

The price of food, especially the things that aren't necessary, is becoming a huge issue. Obviously we can't make those kind of savings every week all year but if you could then that equates to around £4,000. Before tax it would be £5,000. For someone like me who only works 3 days a week this would represent 4 months of work.

Being a bit more realistic, those kind of savings for half the year would seem a sensible goal.

Spending many, many hours in the garden can seem a bit frivolous at times and hard to justify. Thoughts of, I should be earning money often arise, but by looking at it in a different way it can be seen that I am earning money while tending the garden.

Permaculture is a lot about design, the course I am on is a Permaculture Design Course, not that I knew that when I enrolled, and the formal design bit is something that I'm really not interested in. I just want to grow food, flowers, help wildlife, enjoy nature and enjoy my surroundings but I'm beginning to see a way into the design side for my own needs.

If I look at my time spent in the garden as also having a financial benefit I can see that one area to concentrate on would be to replace some of the time spent sowing annuals and instead sow perennials once and thereby free up time.

One of the permaculture principles is observing rather than doing and I have just realised that this can also save time and effort. Specifically, one of the problems is with the amount of time harvesting takes. A crop becomes ready and all of a sudden you have to drop everything, harvest, clean, process it and store it. This year I have observed 2 things that go together very nicely and which you wouldn't necessarily have thought about. In recent years weather forecasters have been telling us about the effect of the jet stream on our weather. If the jet stream is in one position we get stuck with wet stormy weather and stuck in another position we get fine weather but colder weather (in winter). They can also say that the weather type (wet / fine) will not change for a few weeks. Because of the position of the jet stream now we can see that there will not be intense cold and snow for the next week or 3 and because of the time of year the longer this goes on the less chance of a cold snap. If you can get an indication of the general weather a few weeks in advance you can also make a good guestimation as to whether less hardy crops can be left in the ground. The other thing I observed this year is that if you leave your beetroot in the ground way past the normal cropping time and the weather isn't too cold then they happily sit there with no damage. Normally if we have a lot of beetroot we end up picking them all then wasting a lot as we don't have time (at that particular time) to deal with them properly but this year we haven't wasted any as they have sat in the ground and we pick them as and when we need them. Had there been a cold spell like last year we would have wasted them all either to snow and cold damage or because we picked them and then did nothing. Predicting the general weather (listening to the forecasters) meant there was no rush to pull them all and still isn't. Observing and linking things in nature like this can make a big difference. Also because we left the beetroot in they regenerated and grew new leaves, which is another crop. 

October 2013

Sprouts and Broccoli

The small and large white butterfly devastated Sprouts and Broccoli last year but I decided to wait and observe what happened if I left them. Normally instinct would have said pull them and plant and autumn crop but I'm very pleased I didn't. What we have now is rather unexpected.  

March 2014

You can see how well they recovered. After the devastation last year I had decided that I would need to protect them next time but in the case of the broccoli it would appear that it isn't necessary.

The sprouts produced nice tops which with hindsight should have been eaten but now they have started to flower and the leaves are looking a bit tatty.

March 2014

A close up shows just how well the Broccoli recovered and is now producing a worth while crop.

I think this demonstrates the value of observation rather than acting immediately.  Had I acted immediately and pulled them all up I would have had to deal with the same problem next year and I wouldn't have had a crop to eat now.

The simple act of waiting and observing saved money time and effort and produced food. The sprouts will be left as a decoy / sacrificial crop but I still need to find a way of protecting the sprouts so I can produce some to eat but Broccoli in the late summer can now be safely left for the caterpillars to eat. Even if I fail to protect the sprouts then I know that the chances are I will still have the sprout tops to eat next spring.

I've never grown purple sprouting broccoli before so for all I know stripping all the leaves in late summer may have forced the plant to produce more flowers this spring so the caterpillars may even be beneficial !