Kitchen Garden Forum

I have had one of my worst results in the fields this year, all my parsnips failed due to a very dry early spring and I planted good healthy leeks that now vitually all have been devastated by the evil leek moth. I have now got nothing growing for the winter but this afternoon I managed to plant some of my Broad Beans. Rain came and went but threatened all afternoon but when I finished sudenly the late afternoon sun shone, so I hope it was a good omen.
DARK SKIES THREATEN

THE SUN SHONE


Barney

Good luck with the broad beans! You deserve it.

The quotation in full states that the sun shines on the righteous and the unrighteous alike.. and the rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous alike...

That field is a grand sight ....Bravo!

Thanks for correction Marigold, at least he is not selective and doesn't discriminate between us mortals when it is raining or sunshining.

Barney

Will you leave it "as ploughed" over winter Barney?

Round here in Hertfordshire blink and you miss the bare soil, post harvest its one to three cultivating passes and a seeding, stuff up and the field green again in a few weeks.

I like the full quote Having said that we have been very fortunate here, mum is very poorly and I have had anything from two to four lines of washing daily, I like the washing to blow in the fresh air , so far it has been sunny every day and only rained at night.
In one of my mulched beds there are two self seeded broad beans which I must have dumped on the compost heap and they are just coming into flower ! So good luck with your broad beans.

Hi Nature's Babe

Sorry to hear that your mother is not well. I've got another sowing to do soon thanks for the good wishes.

Barney

peter wrote:Will you leave it "as ploughed" over winter Barney?

Round here in Hertfordshire blink and you miss the bare soil, post harvest its one to three cultivating passes and a seeding, stuff up and the field green again in a few weeks.

Hi Peter

No the beans are planted in the photographs, it is the tradition in Somerset to plant as soon after Bridgwater Fair (last Wednesday in September) as possible, they are planted using a Ferguson Potato planter and grown ridged up. Idealy I would compact them with a roller because they can suffer from crows etc picking them out but I will leave them as my rollers are miles away.

FERGUSON POTATO PLANTER (WITH HOPPER AND THE TWO PEASANTS REMOVED!)

The peasants (wife and son) just dribble the seeds down the potato planter's shoots and keep moaning that the seats are too hard. The planter used to have a bell that rang for timing the potato/beans spacings, but now it is just drop and hope.




Barney

Brilliant Barney,

I will be posting the peasants a Health and saftey Leaflet, though.

Brings back many happy memories, and nice to see someone still prepared to scratch a living the hard way.

Hi Old Herbaceous

Thanks for your kind words, but I must confess that this is only a lifestyle choice, our main income comes from Engineering not Market Gardening, thank goodness, we would have been broke years ago. My younger son rents rooms in his house to some Agricultural Students from Sri Lanka and I often visit them for advice on the latest methods and in return I offer to demonstrate to them how things should not be done.

Now that a new housing estate has been built beside some of our fields we have received some mutterings from the young mums as they walk along the footpaths with their children watching us struggle in the fields - me sat on a tractor, my oldest son sat on the trailer and my wife, son's girlfriend and four Sri Lankan girls struggling to heave the full potato sacks up on the trailer!

It was the same when haymaking, we had the girls pitching the bales (since women are not strong enough to drive a tractor are they)? Some adverse comments were made, but only from the young women - the older (true) village girls knew that field work was always womens work and the technical stuff like tractor driving and stacking on the hay trailer was best left to the men.

Any case, the girls seems happy enough now I'm taking them shopping



Bring back the good old days!

Barney

Sinhalese or Tamil?

My colleague is Sinhalese and would be driving the tractor whilst telling you to hurry up with loading the bales, fiesty doesn't start to describe her.

Cider Boys. You shore know how to spoil the girls.

I did not mean to re post this old post, I was looking for when I last planted any broad beans and hit the 'bump' key by mistake. Can anyone unbump it for me.

Best wishes

Barney

No and as you and others have replied to it now it will stay here longer.

Ignore it and it will go away.