Fading light

Although it has been a busy weekend, I have just enough time to show you what is going on at the plot - which to be fair isn't an awful lot...!

The days are getting appreciably colder now - the warmth and stillness of the summer mornings seems to have gone... the grim reality is that in this fading light there is not much time left for the plants to thrive.

There's a chance that these little french beans will just about grow enough to make a decent portion or two - as you can see from the shot below, the plants haven't really grown up the canes...more meandered around horizontally - I've done my best to tether them up now, but I'm not sure it will help.

The cabbages have not been eaten - which is a good start! They also appear to have straightened up and grown a few more leaves each, which is encouraging too (excuse the bricks - subtle as!):

As long as they continue to avoid being eaten, they should hopefully bloom and at the very least produce some tasty leaves. I would be surprised if they develop hearts, but you just never know...

The beetroot are still doing well - I'm really willing them on now to beef up underneath; a few appear to be showing signs of root growth. I've never liked beetroot out of jars - hopefully these will make a convert of me.

And finally, in what I will dub the 'rogues gallery', I have two solitary veg plants that have grown with little care or attention - and from seed, where all others failed - a lonely carrot, and another radish: 

Last (and only) carrot standing

The real problem of course with all veg that grows sub terra is that you can never quite be sure when the right time is to pull them up... I think the carrot will wait a little longer, but perhaps this radish is not far off (not that I really care, the last one was pretty foul!):

The radish 

I decided not to show you the fennel seedlings - the picture was pretty unclear... you'd probably also make out more than was actually going on! Sadly, at least one has fallen prey to a gastropod, and to be honest I don't think the others will survive much longer. Perhaps a poly-tunnel will be a worthwhile investment next year.

A new project - part 2

So, here's the plan for the first plot...

The plot a few days ago...

I'm still a novice when it comes to gardening, but I understand a little about crop rotation. You wouldn't usually do that within a single bed, but with a busy life, you never know how much time you will actually have until you get going...

I'd like to think I could do three or four plots, but even just the one is taking some time... so I've decided to try a bit of everything rather than do a whole bed of just a few vegetables.

I gather the three main groups of veg are brassicas, root veg and legumes/onions/salad, and so I have divided the plot up like so:

I have then opted for the following arrangement:

As I've mentioned before, I've never done peas to any great volume, so I've given a generous slice of the legume section over to those (Kelvedon Wonder). I am then finishing off with a small patch of rocket (wild), and then onions (Ailsa Craig) and probably spring onions... I've put the onions in the middle as they're supposed to be a deterrent to some pests.

On the root veg side, I'm going for beetroot (Boltardy), two types of carrot (long (Autumn King 2) and short (Atlas) varieties), fennel (Florence Chiarino) and radish (French Breakfast 3).

I've put the rocket and radish up in the middle of the plot, because there are a few trees nearby that will provide some shade during the hottest part of the day. Once the peas and fennel have grown a bit, that should also add to the shade in the middle there.

Finally, for the brassica section I'm a little undecided - this will be the first time I've tried them and to be honest I'm not sure what will work, especially seen as I'm halfway through the season... I am considering cabbage and perhaps kale...? If anyone has any suggestions from their own experience please do let me know.

I've then finished off the brassica section by sneaking in a small section of dwarf beans (Tendergreen) - which aren't brassicas I know, but I ran out of room elsewhere and as they tend to be quite tall, it makes sense to have them at the back.

Master of all he surveys...?!

At the moment the peas, beans, rocket, beetroot, fennel, onion, one sowing of radish and both carrots are in (the netted areas)... just waiting to finish the rest of the plot off... then let the battle of wills begin with the wildlife!