Autumn harvest
As autumn is now here, we have harvested the last of the squashes, before the first frosts, which can come early, in the Rococo Garden at 850ft above sea level.
We have also continued to pick the late season bumper crop of apples and pears on the espalier trees. The produce has been stored in the Bothy, ready for use in the Restaurant, or added to our developing Harvest Festival Display.
Winter Green Manures
Where border space has become spare, after harvesting, I have been preparing the ground with the help of the garden volunteers. Once the soil has been raked fine, the volunteers used a draw hoe to create drills, and sowed the field beans (Vicia faba). The field beans fix nitrogen, (which benefits heavy feeding crops like brassicas) and the beans will also help to improve the soil structure when they are incorporated next spring
Garlic and onion sets
We have just started planting the onion sets and garlic cloves for next year. A cold period is generally needed for good garlic bulbs to form. The garlic varieties included both soft-necked and hard-necked varieties. The soft-necked ones do not form a flower stalk. We planted the garlic cloves at a spacing of 6 inches, marking the rows clearly, so that they can be identified for our planned garlic festival next autumn.
Review of the Year
In a changeable season, the successes included all the potato crops, because the dry first half of the summer helped to reduce the incidence of blight. The heritage potatoes all did well, particularly some amazingly knobbly 'Pink Fir Apple' and 'Vitelotte' varieties. The pumpkins fared less well, because of the drought, but the colourful squashes helped to fill the gap.
Similarly the early lettuce bolted in the hot weather, but the later crops of frilled salad leaves helped to compensate for this loss.
Our plentiful beetroot harvest was welcomed by the Restaurant, and with the volunteers I recently got to taste some their delicious beetroot and chocolate cake, a nice way to round off a productive year in the garden.
We hope that you have enjoyed reading our online blog from the Rococo Garden, and wish you ‘good grow your own’ success in 2011.
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