Picture posting is enabled for all :)
Just been to plot for first time this yearFirstly it was very cold. Brrrr. Wind was bitter, but lovely sunshine. Got some sprouts and parsnips. Dug a couple of square meters. Making a raised bed for carrots. Started on more paths. Saw first lambs. Deer and mole and hedgehog have been busy. Hedgehog damaged a lot of broad beans and strawberries, those with manure around not looking good, those with soil are fine. I will not do that again. Note to self bury the manure.There is a HUGE pile of manure. Weather same here. Best in greenhouse with a cuppa.You could make a hotbed with manure for early sowings.Make a dash for home. Next job sowing broad beans. The moon goddess in me says wait till Thursday.
Me, I'm planning my calendar and what I'm going to grow. Soon clearing out the utility room so I can get the propagator in there, and I want to get some grow lights too.
Quote from: Silverleaf on February 01, 2015, 14:43:55Me, I'm planning my calendar and what I'm going to grow. Soon clearing out the utility room so I can get the propagator in there, and I want to get some grow lights too.Do you know about the hydroponics place on Sheepbridge ? Sells lighting too .
I made a hotbed last year it did not do very well, but I shall try again.
Silverleaf: I was very disappointed with my straw bale garden in 2010 - 12 bales at £3 each, delivered. Watered and fertilised it regularly, sprinkled this and that on it as advised, but it never looked like the exciting jungles shown in pictures on straw bale gardening sites. I planted it with summer and winter squashes/courgettes, and I did get crops, but nothing very impressive.However, as they rotted down over the winter and the next year, I laid down cardboard and newspaper over quite a good area (3 yards by 6? Very bad at estimating size) and raked the straw over them. Over that year I added horse manure.....used the area as a rubbish dump for a bonfire....raked the ash over it......tipped compost from the bins over it. Ever since, it has been my most productive bed out of three plots. I was surprised that the usual couch grass and bindweed, so prevalent everywhere else, seldom surfaced through all this covering, though creeping buttercup absolutely loved to invade from outside. I hammered planks into the ground all round it to discourage invaders.Until last year I never dug it, just planted into it. But eventually docks and dandelion seeds arrived, I took my eye off the ball, and in the end just had to dig them out. Interested to find how soft the soil was, and how little cardboard and newspaper remained intact. This had been unimproved grassland, quite heavy clay, absolutely full of creeping thistle, couch and bindweed. At the moment I am looking forward to kale, purple sprouting, cabbages, broad beans, perpetual spinach, and Tayberries growing like mad around a corner bamboo fence.Who else has tried straw bale gardening? Did they work better than mine?