Broccoli and Radishes

The title says it all....yesterday I planted Broccoli and Radishes. It was a strange day, after the glorious sunshine of the last couple of weeks it felt damp and still and there was a 'difference' about things. No other way to describe it.

Some of the sections in my experimental 16 section bed are now taken.

Maybe part of that was being on my own again, although the tractors are chugging away in the fields all around us at the moment and every now and then I get a toot from the horn of the Landrover and a friendly wave as our landlord whizzes past on the track, I am usually on my knees planting away with only the interference of the cats, dogs and chickens. I do find myself talking to them more and more, maybe one day I will turn into a mad old farming woman having in-depth conversations with the stock!!

More Broccoli in the small bed, interplanted with Radishes.

The polytunnel is now slowly giving up it's stock of seedlings as they are being transplanted into the main Kitchen Garden Beds. Soon there will be room for the Tomatoes and Peppers to spread into bigger pots and for the Kiwi plants to climb their strings to the roof. The best news is that my Grapevine has sprung back into life after appearing to be nothing more than a dry desicated twig....good job I didn't pull it up in disgust. The only overwintering things that I have lost are the lemon and lime plants. I will not be replacing these as bought lemons and limes are cheaper than buying more plants, and to tell the truth this seems to be the one exception where shop bought tastes better than homegrown (in my case anyway).

Another Kitchen Garden bed full of promise.

The worst part of yesterday was keeping the chickens off the tender young Broccoli seedlings. As you can see from the picture, I ran out of room under the mesh 'tunnels' so I reverted to last years trick of using 'pop' bottles as mini greenhouses, unfortunately I cut one too few, so I covered all the seedlings on the outside and dashed over to the polytunnel to cut another, in the 2 minutes this took, the uncovered Broccoli was eaten...lock, stock and barrel by a VERY naughty chicken!!

Yes Molly.......I know it was you!!

Today I am going to plant out some peas after making twiggy supports from them, I really quite enjoy this making use of what lies around the farm, and all the branches from the trees LH has been 'trimming' (I call it butchering...but there you go!) are coming in very useful. I'll have to move fast to cover them up though, as chickens LOVE pea shoots!

Sue xx