St Pierre

Poor St.Pierre! Although their label is pretty, they became leggy in the propagator. I have pricked them out into pots and put them in the cold frame, hopefully not to shock them with icy air. Actually inside the marquee is still pretty cold in the morning and night - probably 1 to 3℃- although it reaches more than 25℃ when the sun comes. I didn't realized how extreme the temperature was inside polytunnel or how quickly the seeds would come out.

Today I cropped 7 bags of salad with Janet's help. It is nice feeling to supply food to local people. Sometimes the man at local shop to waves me on the street, "Hi, we need more salad!" as I ride a bike on the way to the garden. Our salad is popular now.
I think we can supply more in spring but need transportation. Now I can only deliver 4 bags with my bike. Chris, come back soon please!

Tomato label

Chris
Here's a mockup label for the St. Pierre tomatoes. We may not sell them, because we love them and are piggy piggy for toms. But this gives an idea of how other labels will vary depending on the crop.
Next up I need to do Welsh/English versions of the labels.
Note that I have removed the word 'organically' - we are not legally allowed to put this (yet!)

I am in London and can't wait to get back and get more beds ready for planting. Spring is on it's way and our produce is in great demand!
Junka has been holding fort on her own. She's a proper trooper :o) !!!

Blaen Camel

Junka
I made a study trip to an organic farm called BlaenCamel near Lampeter with Chloe. They have been growing vegetables there organically for 30 years. They also grow oriental leaves in polytunnels. What a large scale!
The farm is a good place to go not only for buying cheap organic vegetables at their honesty shop but also to go walking on the woodland walkpath.
I also joined a garden tour for school children, which was inspiring.

Beans and peas

Whoops! The root of beans and peas were growing out of the pots. I should have sown them in deep pots. I hastened to plant out broad beans outside, peas inside with no time for hardening. As outisde bed was not quite ready and tonight might be frosty, I covered them with fleece and sprinkled slug pellets.

Marigolds have come out and have been moved into the cold frame.
I also sowed lettuce and shungiku, planning to plant outside for summer crop. Inside the marquee it will soon be too hot for salad. They look fresh in the morning but floppy in the afternoon. So I've had to wait until it gets cooler to crop them after watering.

Okra growing

The Okra in the propagator has germinated and started to grow so I quickly potted them up in biodegradable pots and put them in the cold frame covered with cling film.

Today was sunny and windy. It was not very nice working in the marquee because of heat and constant noise. Dispite the unpleasant conditions, I completed transplanting the salad. I'll have to replan for planting, moving stuff which is possible to grow outdoors such as carrot, bean and pea since salad space has been expanded indoors.

popular Japanese salad

Our salad seems be popular at the local shop. It has a stronger taste than the same leaves when I grew them in Japan. I would imagine that Japanese people would say that they are too bitter but everybody here is saying they are delicious. How interesting it is to see the difference when the same seeds were grown in different circumstances!
In order to supply more salad I transplanted more into the front space in which the tomatoes were planned to be plant out in May. Again, I have never transplanted these Japanese leaves before because they usually grow more quickly and I thought that they disliked being disturbed. However, they grow well after transplanting.
Okra in the propagator have already started coming out.

Seedy Sunday

Junka
Today I went to Seedy Sunday which was held at Machynlleth and also joined a meeting for Dyfi Valley Seed Savers.
They are researching the growing of different Welsh varieties which commercial farmers no longer grow but which have been donated and saved. I took two types of tomato: My Girl and Welsh Farmer Law to test in our garden. I am supposed to report all the results and return the seed afterward. It is interesting to see and taste such traditional varieties.
I also got seeds of Japanese snap pea and melon.

Big smile Chris

Chris finally completed the seedling table. Well done!

Early potatoes planted

Junka
I sowed more tomato (Matina, Lylia Cerisette), hot pepper (Early Jalapeno), sweet basil and marigold. They are keeping warm and cosy in the propagator.

I also planted early potatoes (Colleen) into Marquee bed D1.

Starting summer crop in propagator

Today was chilly, damp, windy weather. I started sowing summer crops such as tomato (St Pierre), sweet pepper (Jumbo) and Okra (clemsons spineless). They were sown in modules and put in the propagator. How exciting!

I also made trench for the peas in the marquee, burying spinach, kitchen waste and card board beneath. Will hopefully transplant the seedlings before going to London in a week's time.

The Salad looked even more fresh and nice in cold. I have begun to be annoyed by slug nibbles since we started selling them. After picking slugs at night, I decided to resort slug pellets. These are ferric phosphate which will break down to iron and phosphate nutrients in the soil.

We are in business!!

Today we sold our first batch of salad to Nisa mini-supermarket in Borth.
Chris designed a sticker label for the salad bags.

Junka
The beautiful weather was gone. Tomorrow seemed rainy and windy. We covered outside bed with black sheet after putting spinach and seaweed in C-bed. It was very cold to work outside today.
I tidied up the salad bed by cutting old leaves and weeding.

Potato bed

We made up the outside potato bed after digging out couche grass. We put animal manure, seaweed, spinach from last year and mixed kitchen compost into bed. The manure may not be completely mature yet but should be ok by the time we plant next month. We will cover the bed with black sheet to warm up the ground.

Flowering flowers

Junka
I keep making more beds to transplant salad every day.











I also dug out couche grass in outside bed to prepare to plant potato.

It was a still, sunny, lovely day to work outside.
Wall flowers and Crocus are coming out.

seed table

The Broad Beans and Peas which we already germinated at home were settled into the cloche in the marquee.
We collected more seaweed from the beach to use for compost and mulch.
Chris built a new deck for the junk yard seed table.
He is busy building a larger one from scratch - it will be ready very soon.

preparation

We prepared to grow seedlings of summer crop. We discussed about hot bed but gave up. I cleaned a propagator in Joel's greenhouse and Chris was building a table. We also took a used cloche inside to keep seedlings warm after germination.

Chris made and prepared the outside beds, digging out couche grass. I limed and watered the inside bed for peas & beans. Chopped down more old spinach use for trench compost.
We brought salad to my friends at dinner. It was delicious!

Selling salad

Good news. We are allowed to sell our vegetables at the local shop NISA in Borth.
It would be great that we can supply food with local people although it won't make much money.
I transplanted more salad today. It was sunny but chilly outside, the best temperature for working inside.

Diggy diggy

Lovely weather again. The salad is growing amazingly with all this sun and heat. So are the weeds. I watered and weeded the salad beds.
Chris began digging the outside bed where I chopped the spinach down yesterday. Having lifted the spinach and couche grass roots (and other weeds) we will go through and take out as much weed root as possible before manuring and covering ready for planting out main crop potatoes in a few weeks.

Sunny sunny

Another sunny warm day. Junka enjoyed working outside, planting garlic which was supposed to be done in November and then cutting back the Hydrangea.
Chris made six trenches for potatoes inside. We put in loads of organic matter: spinach clippings; spinach & seaweed; spinach & kitchen mix and spinach & animal manure. Then watered them. Next week we will plant in the sprouted potatoes.

Spring in the air

Today was an absolutely beautiful day. Looks like spring has come with Cameria, Daffodil and Binka all coming out. In the morning I thinned out more salad. I felt it was a shame to throw them away and transplanted some onto the borders. I know we have more than enough for ourselves but just couldn't chuck them all because it has taken so much time and energy to grow them so far. After lunch the polytunnel was too hot to work in - it reached 29℃ !. So I started preparation for planting outside, putting some seaweed and leaf-mould into the beds. What a nice feeling to work in the sun! I also cleared away some of the left-over spinach which will make good compost.

Junka
I found that the seed potatoes were damp and sprouting in our cupboard in the marquee. Damn it! So I put them in trays, cut the big ones in half, rose end upwards in order to produce sturdy shoots to help them sprout quickly. Maybe we will grow some of them inside.
I also planted garlic on the border of marquee near to where our tomatoes will be growing soon. After burying some organic matter such as leafmould and cardboard, I put organic seed compost on top of the garlic cloves because the soil was dried and sandy.

Many much salad

Junka
The salad had grown so quickly after only two days absence, which surprised me.
I hastened to thin them out to give the crops final space and transplanted some of them.
We ate baby salad for dinner.

Chris made a new bed for beans and limed on the half of the bed. (I planned to sow onion and carrot but eventually transplanted salad)

Home-grown seedlings

Junka
I caught a cold and stay home today.
I sowed Pea(Mateor) and Broad Bean at home in biodegradable modules with seed compost.

Lovely weather and the Marquee was pretty warm (up to 20 degree!).
Chris is building a seedling table and has put up the first palette compost bin.
I raked off the moss and cleared the salad beds, although I don't really know if moss is a problem. Crops look beautiful!

Happy return

It's over two weeks since we last visited the gardens (away to London) and today I arrived back hoping to find plenty of growth and no slugs. And i did!! It looks great!
The mizuna and fuyuna have really
begun to bush out and even the slow growing corn salad has begun to mature.
The elegant elephant garlic is giant! I think we may have to plant some more...

It is a great relief not to have to spend hours in the dark picking slugs off the beds and plants. The Ferrus Phosphate pellets we put down have now gone white and fuzzy (not sure why) but they seem to have done their job as I could find no hidden slugs.

Today I broke down the clods of earth in the newly-turned nasturtium bed. I got a little carried away and ended up spending the whole day digging and hoeing all three empty beds. Tomorrow I will begin
clearing the front left beds which have begun to look overgrown.

The next build task is to make a compost box from pallettes, one to begin with and more to follow. Our main kitchen waste compost bin is currently host to a family of rats I think. It needs re-setting with chicken wire beneath it to keep vermin out.

I'm also on the lookout for wood to build the seed table. So far I have about half of the main structure based on the present design.