Happy New Year Everyone.
I trust everyone had a fabulous winter break with snowflakes, snowmen and snowballs but I am now back to working off my expanded waistline due to sherry, ale and turkey, a whole stone has been added! Those who went to the meeting will have seen me, hiding in the corner, out of sight, trying to avoid any public speaking! My name is Guy Cunningham and I will be working on the Promised Land with the aid of James and Katie Genever. We all felt that it would be a great idea that a diary should be written, keeping everyone up to date with what is going on, the joys, heart ache and comedy moments. I hope you enjoy….
October 2009
We marked out all the plots, with 3 roads and made a start on the rabbit fence. The fence on the Casewick side goes about 10 inches underground to stop them burrowing under, with the rest of the fence curled out ten inches for the same reason.
We collected the brassicas (spring cabbage, chard, spinach, broccoli, calabrese) and the cloches and started planting.
This coincided with the high winds, any eagle eyed walkers would have either seen the cloches flying across a field or wrapped round a cow! Needless to say, much of my time was taken up by chasing these cloches.
A special thank you to the Ekins family for their assistance with the planting of brassicas.
November 2009
The brassicas were completed and the perennials (raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb, etc.) were next on the list. Four varieties of strawberry and 3 varieties of raspberry were planted all with different fruiting times, the plan being that there will be a more constant amount of produce over the summer. The gate was also erected, old railway sleepers were used which give a lovely old rustic but stable gate.
December 2009
The very start of December saw the planting of some broad beans and garlic. This was one of the colder experiences of planting with 5 layers the norm and the Genever’s kettle got a good hammering from me! We also tried to stem the flow of rabbits entering the Promised Land from the spinney next to the grain sheds by placing new rabbit fencing around that field.
Guy’s diary continues here
This has been very pleasing, chard and spinach are developing very well, calabrese and broccoli are being eaten as dish of the day by the rabbits, however we have replaced as much as possible. Rhubarb is developing and it grows in the dark, so with the snow cover we are expecting some good healthy rhubarb.Garlic was growing shoots after just a few weeks however with the freezing it has pushed much of the garlic out of the ground, we only planted a quarter of the garlic so far though.
These are our main problem.With the high winds of October and November blowing the cloches off, the rabbits had a good go at much of the brassica plots. They are also interested in a specific variety of strawberry which is unusual, however the albion will grow and be strong. We have increased the rabbit fencing and we will be putting out traps and looking for them at shoots, there is a price on Bugs Bunny now! The problem sounds worse than it is as 80% of produce is still there and growing.
Another pest.
I would like to point out that this is a very honest account of what is going on at the Promised Land.