Spuds

Soon I'll be heading down to Steve and Rosie's field to plant spuds. I say soon when I mean sometime this week.

Hopefully. The trouble is that work has gone a bit frantic for me so getting a bit of time off will be a challenge.

S 'n' R 'n' me have been laying out beds of very mature horse muck and then covering the beds with weed control fabric.

The beds are mostly about 10 metres by 4 metres and the muck is approx. 6" deep at least.

The idea is to plant the seed spuds through a cross cut in the fabric and into the muck.

When I say muck and mature, what I mean is that :- if the horse manure is piled up outside a stable for a few years the worms and time itself transform the manure into something resembling soft soil, or loam. Its so rich.

The fabric ensures that the weeds can't grow, although it has to be said that if left for a couple of years with only the weed control fabric between sky and the ground the weeds certainly would break through the fabric. Happily we won't be waiting for the weeds to re-emerge. The idea being to use this method to clear the weeds fom the ground and also to nourish the soil with a big influx of rich mature muck.

Now when the spuds are eventually  picked after lifting the fabric the ground will be ready for the next crop to go in.

We'll obviously be using a basic crop rotation.

Also we'll be using permculture principles which Rosie and myself are just learning about on our course in Leeds, and Steve did the Leeds course last year. So we are in agreement about using permaculture for growing.

I'm really enjoying the course, I missed the 2nd weekend because of illness. We'll be going to Leeds for 6 weekends, for 6 months, one weekend per month. I was a bit undecided about the course but paid up to go as it can't hurt, I thought. The 1st weekend puzzled me a bit as I'd thought we'd be learning more about growing etc when in practice we've spent quite a bit of time in classrooms debating how society works and what we think could be different. Yet I have to say that I really like the permaculture take on how we could interact in society.

Yet my take on the permculture is that how we garden reflects what and how we live.

One thing that does appeal to me is to match up input to output, making a closed system.

I want to change our front garden to become a forest garden, which some folk now are calling "edible garden".

For years I have cut the grass dutifully growing on our front and side gardens, but now the side is covered with raised beds for veg growing and I'm puzzling though making the edible forest garden fo the front.

I'm treating what I'm doing as a work in progress.

There might be the need to change things around later on if I discover that I've done something not how I like it.

But thats what appeals to me in gardening.

Major excitment today has been the arrival of 3 blueberry plants that I had ordered ages ago, well a few weeks ago anyway. I've unpacked them,

given them some water and put them out the back of the house until Ican find time to repot them into bigger pots.

I'm also waiting for some raspberry and blackberry plants to arrive but from a different dealer.

I'll need to spend some time at the weekend sorting out where I want to put everything.

Also I need loads of big pots as I've been given lots of cuttings from gooseberry, white and red currants and raspberries. The back of the house on the raised wall is filling up with growing items of various kinds.

This gardening thing really,really, really excites me but at times i feel totally unknowing as to what to do and how !

This is a new thing for me, but I'll work it out or watch the plants die,  which is not an option. Totally not an option. 

However its now 11pm and bed needs me, I can hear my bed calling my name. Really, its calling my name.

So once again my darlings I'll say, night night sleep tight don't let the bedbugs bite.

See ya tomorrow, god willing.