Raised beds (part 2)

It took a little longer than I intended to write this post as there are so many exciting things happening on the farm at the moment. The polytunnels are filling up with plants fast, the bluebells are popping up their green bits in the woods and the fruit bushes in the field are all turning from lifeless looking twigs to bushy green things.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the garden over the last month, this is a lot to do with the pile of wood staring at me through the office window. My normal way of tackling a project is to get stuck in and work my way through problems as they arise. I’ve had mixed success with this way of working, but since I’m having to explain what I’m doing and there’s the potential for loads of people to see me muck this up, planning seems to have taken a front seat.

To kick this planning process off I decided to measure out the space I had available. After a frustrating half hour of searching for a tape measure, I gave up and moved onto plan b. I’m not entirely sure on the accuracy of this method but it suited my needs just fine – logging onto Google Earth I found that my patch measures 19m/13m.

Armed with my dubious measurements, an excellent selection of stationary I’d liberated from the office, I set to making a scale plan of the garden. To make life easy I choose a 1cm to 1m scale, with this I drew out the tiny 19cm by 13cm garden onto A3 paper.

At this point I had to decide how I was going to rotate my vegetable patch. There are a few schools of thought here. Because I have plenty of space and wood I thought I’d try two of them- the 3 and 4 bed rotations. As the title suggests, I need 4 beds for one of them and 3 for the other. I also want a bed for rhubarb, one for asparagus, one for flowers to attract bees, one for strawberries and a spare one just in case I run out of room. That's a total of 12 beds.

During the build I wanted to waste as little material as possible. With this in mind, I decided on making a good proportion of the beds 5m long as this was the length the wood arrived in. I found some old card and cut out a few 5/1.2m beds to my crafty new scale and laid them out onto the garden plan to see how they would fit in. Once these were on the paper I soon realised that I couldn’t make all 12 beds 5m long. After a bit of sliding beds around I decided that 6 would fit in quite nicely. This meant the four beds for one of the rotations were sorted, plus my strawberry bed and spare one. Based on the space I had left, I cut out some 3/1.2cm beds and slid these around until I found that five fitted in. This covered the 3 bed rotation, rhubarb bed and asparagus. With a good space free in the centre of the garden and an excellent supply of willow in the woods at the bottom of the farm, I decided on a 3m round bed for all the pretty flowers.

Once I was happy with how everything was laid out I found a tape measure and ventured outside to double check the garden measurements. Reasonably happy with how everything worked out, I checked that the Rocket crew were happy with it and then firmed up the design with a biro. Planning completeish, I’d better head into the workshop and start building.

Cheers and gone,

Rob

Jamie's Plot (Seed Potatoes, part 2)

I was lucky enough to visit my friend, Jamie's beautiful allotment at the weekend, down at Prussia Cove, in Cornwall. I think he's possibly the luckiest gardener, ever! Take a look at the view from his plot- it's gorgeous! (finally, I've added the photo!)

Jamie's a little bit more experienced than I am at gardening and has quite a large space to fill. I haven't measured it and neither has he but it must be somewhere in the region of 50 square metres that he's got to play with.

The plot hasn't been used for several years and so needed a lot of tlc before Jamie could begin to start planting. Brambles had pretty much taken over the whole site, so firstly he had to get his strimmer out and clear it all. Next up, he had to roughly mark out where he was going to have each plot and dig over the ground. He did this all by hand, using a shovel and then a hoe. It took him a whole afternoon to do this but, having watched him work, I think it would probably have taken me about two weeks. He then covered the freshly-dug soil with compost.

So far, he's planted his potatoes as finally the ground has warmed up enough to do so without delaying their growth. He's planted 40 of Rocket Gardens' seed potatoes; a few of each of our varieties.

Like me, Jamie has planted early varieties of potatoes, which should harvest by May. Not only does this mean we should get to eat our delicious crops sooner, rather than later, it also means we should avoid the perils of potato blight, which I hear is one of the greatest risks to potato crops. Although early varieties are particularly susceptible to the disease, it doesn't usually hit until July so we should miss it.

For those of you planning later potato crops, here is some info' about potato blight, as I understand it:

• Potato blight is a fungus-like organism, which affects the green parts of the potato plant, causing them to fall apart.


• Wet, soggy leaves are one of the causes of potato blight so watering the plants can help spread the disease. It's best to water the soil around the plant, rather than all over the leaves.


• Growing several varieties, especially when laid out in alternative rows, can help reduce the spread of the disease.


• Warm, dry, sunny conditions are the best way to fend off blight- those of you who have experienced our British 'Summers' can see why we need to worry about the disease!


• If you do get blight, pull off the infected areas and discard them by throwing them away or burning them- don't use them for compost.

I got my information from http://www.potato.org.uk/, which also has a blight watch service, so you can keep an eye on prevalence of the disease in your area.

Forcing Rhubarb

When those in the know at Rocket HQ suggested I grow forced rhubarb, I wasn't that keen. It sounded rather violent and not very natural. However, after a bit of a talking to, followed by a bit of reading up, I discovered that actually it's more 'encouraging' than 'forcing.' By preventing natural light from reaching the emerging rhubarb plants, they shoot upwards more quickly than normal, trying to search for light. The result, so I'm told, will be delicious tasting, bright red fruit.

Everything I've read and every conversation I've had about rhubarb tells me that it's the easiest thing to grow. Perfect for a beginner like me, then. Although you can grow rhubarb from seed, apparently year-old plants, called crowns, are the best way to do it. I'm more than happy to let someone else do the hard work for me, so I collected some ready-made crowns from the greenhouses at Rocket Gardens. These pinky-greeny fleshy blobs (I'm getting really technical here) come in 3-litre pots and just the tip of the crown pokes out the top of the soil.

Having prepared the beds last weekend, I was able to transfer the rhubarb crowns straight into the ground. I was told to choose a spot that receives plenty of sun, at which point, I got really confused- surely if they're going to be covered up to prevent them from seeing the sun, choosing a sunny spot to plant them in is, at best, slightly silly and, at worst, just teasing the poor plants? Again, I was wrong.

Rhubarb plants will harvest annually for around 10 years and it's only the first month or so of each growing season when you might want to cover them up and 'force' them. The rest of the time, the sunnier the spot, the sweeter and more fruitful the plants will be.

So, I chose the perfect sun trap spot and simply dug a hole about 30cm in depth into the bed and put in a handful of wormcast. I then emptied the contents of one of the 3-litre pots, and popped it into the hole. I then covered it all over and gave it a pat with my hand (I'm not quite sure why I pat the soil but I vaguely remember doing it whilst gardening with my Dad when I was little and old habits die hard.) Finally, I placed a bucket over the top of the newly-planted rhubarb and weighted it down with a large stone. I'd been warned that rhubarb likes to spread and so needs rather a lot of space, so I placed each plant about half a metre apart.

They'll take a month until they're ready to harvest initially and at this point I'll leave the bucket off and let the plants get some sunshine. Generally, the harvest season lasts between March and July, although this will be pushed back somewhat with the harsh Winter that we've had. Who knows, in Scotland, you may well be picking rhubarb well into August!

If you do fancy having a go at growing some forced rhubarb, Rob says there's still time to order some from us. In fact, his exact words were, "they're beauties!"

There's a scrumptious-looking Jamie Oliver recipe for rhubarb bellinis that I just can't wait to try!

I'm hoping my rhubarb turns out like this!

Raised beds from recycled materials

I was supposed to be writing a post this week about designing my raised beds, but I decided to go on holiday instead. However, because I’m so dedicated to the Rocket Gardens cause, I’m now writing this is, whilst sat in a bar, nursing a cold beer, at the bottom of the slopes. It’s a hard life!.
I realised late last week that not everyone has a saw mill with a friendly owner nearby. Not only that, it’s not always that easy to transport materials from a saw mill unless you have a trailer or van. This started me thinking about other cheap or free materials that are available for creating beds or containers. I’m sure you’ll be able to come up with more interesting ideas than I have but here a few to get you going.
Firstly, used car tyres are brilliant. They can be fitted in the back of a car and can be picked up for nothing from a local tyre fitter. They're great for growing carrots, courgettes or even spuds, if you stack them on top of one another. Raised beds made out of tyres look a bit like the tyre walls in the Grand Prix. They also hold compost rather well, too.
Old soft drink cans are pretty handy if you can collect enough of them. We’ve built raised beds from them in the past by sticking them together using silicone (which can be bought from a DIY store) and then making them into a circular raised bed.

If you have any builders nearby, see if you can get hold of the big nylon bags that sand comes in. They hold compost really quite well and if you don’t grab them they’ll probably get put in the bin.
Reclamation yards are also a brilliant source of building goodies. They will have a whole host of fantastic things to grow in- old floor boards, bricks and a million other things, if you keep your mind open.
If you have any ideas that you’d like to share, please comment and tell everyone about it.

I'm back off to the slopes!

Cheers and gone,

Rob

Growing Potatoes (part 1)

What with winter lingering rather chillingly in the air and the inches of snow that some of the country have seen, the growing season has been put back by a couple of weeks. That's actually quite lucky for a late-starter like me though because it means I haven't missed the boat to get some early potatoes in the ground.

Not so very long ago, I imagined that you just dug a hole in the ground, stuck in some potatoes you had lying around that you hadn't yet baked, fried or mashed, and waited for them to magically sprout more little tatties. Surprise, surprise; there's actually a little more to it than that.

In order to get any harvest at all, you have to use chitted seed potatoes. (Chitted means potatoes that have little green shoots poking out them.) Each shoot is new growth and, once in the ground, will be where the new harvest of potatoes will grow from. A good number of shoots on each seed potato is 2 to 3- any more than that and there won't necessarily be enough food from the original potato to supply all the new growth.

So, I've had a delivery of ready-chitted potatoes and I'm ready to get going! Although I could have planted them straight into the garden, the ground is still a little bit cold (the ideal temperature to get them moving quickly is 9 degrees c. Anything lower than 4 degrees c and they stay dormant.) So, instead I've put the seed potatoes into egg boxes (one potato in each egg holder.) I've placed them with their green shoots facing upwards and set them all on a sunny windowsill in my kitchen. I also kept each potato variety seperated and labeled them, too- the theory being that I can do the same when I plant them out and be able to keep track of what I'm digging up.

I'm using Maris Peer, Ambo, Orla, Charlotte and Colleen varieties. As it's my first go, I thought I'd try several different sorts to see if any grow better than others and also which I like the taste of. It's also no coincidence that these varieties are available on the Rocket Gardens website- but then I figure, there's got to be some benefit to working for the family firm!

Setting the potatoes in egg boxes is great because it keeps them upright and (hopefully) the shoots will grow nice and straight. Alternative holders would be egg cups or even cup cake holders. I ran out of egg boxes though and so I used a cereal box, clumping several potatoes together, and they don't seem to be any the worse for it. (I can tell I'm not going to be a particularly fastidious gardener!)

It's been beautifully sunny and spring-like over the weekend and the shoots have responded to the warmth already- I'm sure it's not my imagination and over-enthusiasm and the shoots really have got longer. I'll have to wait a couple of weeks, until the shoots have reached 2-3 cm in length and then I can plant the potatoes into the ground.

Partly because it's necessary and partly because I'm too excited to be able to leave my potato-related activity at that, I also started preparing the ground outside this weekend. I've dug over the raised bed, which is going to house them and also covered the ground in compost. I then dug in some organic worm cast fertiliser for good measure, in order to make sure the ground is full of nutrients when it comes to planting time.

Considering this has been my first full weekend dedicated to being a 'real' gardener, I think it went pretty well. It's been brilliant having an excuse to be outside, and digging up compost feels like a much more wholesome calorie-burning activity than going for a run. So far, so good!

Raised Beds (part 1)

My sister wrote some lovely things about me last week but I thought it was best to introduce myself briefly in my own words. I like taking things apart and trying to put them back together again without too many bits left over. I like bumbling through the woods with my dog and mucking about in my boat on the Helford River. I think that it should only rain at night and snow is brilliant for short periods. I love what I do at Rocket Gardens and now that I’m settled at the farm, it’s time to start a veg patch.

I have an area just outside the office that’s 14 metres by 18 metres that I’d like to fill with 6 raised beds. I’m going to try and do everything quickly and on the cheap to prove that gardening doesn’t have to be expensive or all-consuming. I want to create a garden for all the rocket staff to use and enjoy that looks nice and is easy to maintain.

Over the weekend I went down to see a friendly chap at a local sawmill and picked up a load of waste timber to build my beds from. This is a much cheaper option than using railway sleepers or wood bought from the builders merchants, not only that it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside to be using something that no-one else wants.

During the coming week I’ll draw up a garden plan, mark out the beds and I’ll post about it next week so you can see how I got on.

Cheers and gone,

Rob