We spent a busy day up on the lottie yesterday, expecting the plot to be wet after 36 hours of steady rain at home. But even though the lottie is only 10 minutes away the plot was dry all but a dampness on the surface. The plot is divided into quarters by grass paths and we thought these may need mowing but the weather has been so dry that there was no grass growth at all.
The main task was to improve the soil in the one quarter – dig out a trench, rotovate over the bottom to break up the boulder clay, spread a layer of half-rotted straw in the bottom, fill the trench back in and finally top it off with a thick mulch of compost. We planted out more leek plants, about 80, into this, half Musselburgh and half Swiss Giant. We had already planted out some Swiss Giant weeks ago and they have made good growth. Our aim is to keep harvesting leeks throughout winter and spring – we eat so many of them!
In between the rows of leek plantlets we sowed Mooli, two types of chickory one for leaves and one hearts, turnip for autumn salads and some winter spring onions, both red bulbed and white. We also took the risk of sowing some carrots chancing the weather in the hope of some very late baby roots and some dwarf french beans for late autumn cropping.
So it’s fingers crossed now in the hope that the late summer and early autumn weather is benevolent!
greenbenchramblings 