Tag: raised bed

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Raised Bed

Looking bright green in the morning sunshine, there are a couple of rows of carrots (sown sparingly to avoid thinning), with a stray lettuce, land cress, cos lettuce, radish and more Nantes carrots. With the last few days of warm weather it’s been watered twice a day to stop the veg going to seed. Tied the bean sticks together and linked them to the trellis which is the other side of the path, the first beans are winding up the canes despite the attentions of the slugs and snails. A lovely warm and sunny day with light winds, the cats have been lolling about in the shade.

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Strawberry Beds

All the plants that had been in pots for the last few months are now settled in the raised bed, a lot of them had thrown out new runners so the empty beds along the row can be filled before Christmas, I hope, ready to give a bumper crop next year. Made an attempt at making a hay feeder for the sheep, think I’ll have to move on to Mk II as some modifications were required. Mowed the grass in the meadow strip, the hedge will need watering if it doesn’t rain in the next couple of days, and will scatter some poppy seeds. William appeared to limp last night so had his hooves checked, all appeared ok and he’s fine today. A warm sunny day with light winds.

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Blueberries

Planted six new plants in the freshly weeded border, I hope they do as well as the one in the pot, will need to feed them with an ericaceous mulch, the daisies have been trimmed so there’s enough space for them to stretch. The runner beans are still doing well despite being buffeted by the strong winds, it’s difficult to walk between the rows as the frame has developed a bit of a lean. The all shapes and sizes mediterranean carrots are tasty, they’re being overrun by the courgettes in the adjacent bed but I don’t think it’ll make any difference. The trees in the lane are starting to lose their leaves, the hot weather combined with not enough rain has dried out the tops. A cloudy day with a few showers and late sunshine.

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Vegetables

The yellow Tumbler tomatoes are growing in the same pot as the sunflower and a few red Outdoor Girl have ripened in the border, all different shapes and sizes. The sun and wind has been so hot today that some tomato plants have shriveled in the greenhouse, I hope they recover, will let a sideshoot develop if not. Picked more runner beans, they’ve been thrashed by the high winds so tied a few back to their poles. There’s been a real variety of weather conditions that the plants have to withstand – both varieties of courgettes are doing OK, the drop in the level of compost in the raised bed means they’re protected. A few drops of rain evaporated as soon as they touched the ground so more watering.

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Raised Beds

In one of the square beds the pumpkins are starting to overwhelm the french beans; the early purple sprouting plants are doing ok although the butterfly’s are laying a lot of eggs that need removing regularly. The intermediate beds need filling with donkey poo ready for the strawberry plants Which need planting out ready for next year. A pair of wrens were hopping about on the bench by the ceanothis tonight, they amused Poppy for a while, fortunately they’re too quick for her. The ouessants are all grazing in the paddock, they sat together chewing the cud in the shelter, a lot calmer today. A sunny windy day, watered the vegetables.

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Cycle Ride

Starting above Pimperne we admired the view from the top of the longest Long Barrow in Dorset – 107 meters long and 27 meters wide in places. Full of wild flowers including Orchids, Ladies Bedstraw and Yellow Goatsbeard, also known as Johnny-go-to-bed-at-noon because the flowers open at dawn and close by lunchtime; this seed head was the size of a tennis ball. Stopped for coffee and a sausage roll at Rawston Farm where there was a good display of plants, rawstonfarmbutchery.co.uk. A hot day to ride up the hills, great coming down! Watered the vegetables, the compost in the raised beds is disappearing, the level has dropped by a third.

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Temporary Solution

I snipped off all the stalks without flowers on the runner beans, 6 or more per cane, this is the temporary deer protection as I like runner beans a lot! Fencer coming this week so I will have stock fencing to put on the trellis, then I’ll need to add a couple of gates. Think I may have found where the deer is coming through the hedge, a couple of pallets and some bailer twine have filled that gap. Time will tell whether this works, good to see that the courgettes are starting to wander in the raised bed. More rain this morning and then the day warmed up with late sunshine. Iceberg lettuces need planting out, hopefully get round to that tomorrow.

sdr