Hello. Here’s what we were up to down on the farm last Friday.
First up, I was planting out parsley, four to a row, under the netted field (although the netting had recently blown off the steel hoops in strong winds). First, though, the bed I was planting into needed some fairly heavy preparation, having become pretty weedy.
For the small surface weeds, this was a matter of disturbing with a fork or rake, but the more established weeds needed to be taken up and disposed of. The biggest issue was couch grass, which is very hard to get rid of if it gets established, so this meant going deep and trying to get as much of it up with roots intact as possible. Often you’ll pull some of this up and see that the roots go shooting off at right angles, showing how stubbornly it can establish itself and spread. Even when pulled up, this is not a weed you want to dump just anywhere on site, so it was tipped into the brazier for later burning.
In the same field I saw where a lot of lettuces had been replanted after the first lot had been attacked by the dreaded wire worm – a problem especially, apparently, where land has been grassy before being cultivated.
We met a new pest, too – the flea beetle, which had gone for some of the brassicas. The visible sign of this is a lot of small spots and holes on the leaves. Bart explained that this had been a surprise, as this is a pest that, if it turns up, usually appears later, in high summer. A bit of a headscratcher, then.
Then a bunch of us spent some time hauling the netting back over the steel hoops. Rather than weighing it down with sandbags again, this time we went one better and did some industrial-scale knitting: we got a bunch of spare steel rods and then threaded them through the netting along the edges of the netted area of the field – these should weight the net to the ground much more effectively and should be pretty much gust-proof.
Finally, although I didn’t do any actual dibbing, I saw the dibbing technique for planting out shallots, which have gone into one of the fields nearer the gate. It’s hard to describe this technique – it’s best to see it done. I learned a few things about shallot planting, though – for example, they need to be watered in pretty sharpish after planting so they don’t dry out. For the same reason, they shouldn’t be waiting around and exposed for long, while you’re preparing to plant them, out of their pot or rootball.
Written by Gavin, Sustainable Farming Assistant