The late running winter means planting is late this year and the growing season will be about three weeks shorter. Nevertheless, now that winter is, at last, behind us, we have made a start on planting the potatoes. They have been chitting for weeks in the greenhouse. On Thursday, the first row was planted. The entire crop is to go onto Dad's allotment at Marley Hill. This allotment needs a great deal of work to bring it fully into use and I am planning to take some of our chickens up there when I know I am doing a full day's work there so they can attack the weeds and mini-jungle there that need clearing.
With so many chickens and ducks, we don't need to buy fresh manure for the potatoes. Over the past week, I shipped up a load to chicken manure to Marley Hill and added it to the trench ready for planting. It's another cost saved.
Also planted out this week were some of the onions we ended up planting in seed trays in the greenhouse in January because the ground was too wet to put them outdoors in the autumn. I filled the entire netted raised bed on our main allotment along with the shallots and garlic also growing in the greenhouse. The rest will go onto Dad's allotment. We are growing a much bigger crop of onions this year. Along with potatoes, they are our most important crop. They are used in our chutneys, as ingredients in our meals and will be added to the sausages that we will making soon. We will never have more than we need.
No comments:
Post a Comment