Makin' Plans

A walk up a wooded hillside two miles from my land

Let me tell you a little more about the sorts of things I'm hoping to grow this year on this patch of earth in mid Wales. The soil itself is crucial to the successful growth of any plant which is why I've been spending months trying to get it into a state which most vegetable plants will appreciate – namely not too waterlogged (hence making “raised” beds so excess water will drain downwards past their roots), containing lots of vital nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous (so I've been mixing rotted horse manure and organic fertiliser throughout the earth which is packed full of these elements and others), and around 6-7 on the pH scale (a test last year revealed it was pH 5 so I've been adding hydrated lime to make it more alkaline.)

There are twelve raised beds so far, each ten metres by 1.2 metres, with paths between them. By the end of this season I hope to have made twelve more, which would fill the long rectangular growing area so next year I'll have twenty-four of them to play with. You may already know I have a small greenhouse which is now home to many young seedlings, and am currently in the process of erecting a polytunnel, roughly fifteen metres by four metres, where the warmth-loving types of veg will go – tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, butternut squash plus some leaf salads. There's also a corner of the garden where I've planted eight blueberry bushes which apparently love acidic soil, so they should be in their element.

Two of the raised beds are devoted to perennials, i.e. plants that stay put and keep giving fruit each year. As I mentioned in my last post I've chosen rhubarb and asparagus, but neither will provide any fruit this year as they establish themselves. That leaves ten beds for this year's growing.

Horse manure queuing up to go onto the beetroot bed

Garlic nearly fills one raised bed. I planted the cloves last October and made an attempt to protect them over winter from ravenous pheasants by staking a fence around the bed but on my return I discovered most of the young shoots had been nibbled to the quick. A net now covers them but I don't know if they will fully recover.

On either side of the garlic will go leeks and carrots, one bed each, and next to the leeks will be a bed shared between courgette and butternut squash. Runner beans will take up the largest area, of one and a half beds; the remaining half is to be occupied by cabbages, which spill over onto the bed next-door as well, sharing that one with broccoli.  Baby spinach is to take an entire bed, and beetroot will take another. Finally one raised bed will be devoted to broad beans, french beans and yellow mange-tout.

Some of the decisions on what to grow were taken on suggestions from Katie who is running the veg bag scheme that I'm supplying to, but mostly it's a mix of foodstuffs that I like to eat and enjoy growing. If all goes to plan I'll be feeding myself from it all and with a bit of luck, selling the rest to Katie and other outlets.

The polytunnel begins to take shape

This Saturday is my first “volunteer day”, as Katie has sent out a mass email calling for volunteers from Machynlleth to come up to help me to put the skin on the polytunnel, so I'm working all hours to get the frame up and the trenches dug on either side where the edges of the skin will be buried under soil to keep it in place. And of course my electric drill now has to run out of juice on a site with no mains supply...   Watch this space to find out if we made it!