Sunday 18 April 2010

Square Foot Garden: tidied up for new planting and sowing. Plus we've dug a new bed for potatoes, which one isn't supposed to grow in the same place for at least two years. Better to circulate every three, from what I've read, but I'm not sure that we'll be able to dig another bed for potatoes next year - we'll have to see.

The wooden frames have weathered a lot in the last year and lost their new look, but I prefer them this way. I've planted broccoli and kohlrabi and two sorts of lettuce, and sown spinach, chard and beetroot. In half of last year's potato bed I've sown carrots and onions in the hope of getting a better crop than last year. Apparently they don't like too much nitrogen, which they got from all the horse manure which I dug in, and they like a sandier soil - so I'm hoping for better results. In the other half of the bed will go a courgette plant. Last year's under the peach tree got so little light that it really was hardly worth the one large marrow which resulted. I'll dig lots of compost in and see what happens.

Last year's artichoke plant didn't survive the winter. I was too busy writing that I neglected to mulch it and the frost killed it off. But it took up rather a lot of room in the one square, that it may be a blessing in diguise.

I'm hopeful of getting a lot of jostaberries on the bushes which I transplanted last spring. There are loads of flowers on them this time. Neighbours told us that they wouldn't survive the transplanting, but they've done very well.

Plus I've put up another raised bed in stepped style on our terrace to grow herbs and lettuces and carrots. Carrots need deeper soil, so I'm experimenting with them this way this time, as well as trying them out in sandy soil further back in the garden.