Well, its been a few months since I last posted anything, but the weather here today is wet and miserable so I thought I would do a bit of catching up with life on the moor.
The weather during May has been lovely with clear blue skies and the wonderful quality of light that is rarely experienced outside Cornwall. The Moor is springing into life with the winter born lambs venturing further from their mothers and young foals and calves roaming wild over the new grass.
All our hard work animal-proofing our plots are now under test. Crops are sown and are beginning to grow. The old veggie plot is almost entirely devoted to a variety cabbages, sprouts, cauliflowers, pak choi and koli rabi with just a row of broad beans (because the upper veggie plot wasn't quite ready when the beans needed to be planted out). And a row of celeriac because I had space and a wonky row of parsnips because I thought I could plant in a straight line without the string - as it was pointed out to me I can't!
Down here but not in a protected area are strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackcurrants, garlic, asparagus and home-grown rhubarb.
In the poly-tunnel we have had our first crops of radishes, lettuces and rocket it is lovely to have these so early in the year. We have great hopes for our gerkins, cucumbers, courgettes, patti-pan squash, tomatoes in hanging baskets, and cordon tomatoes which have all been grown from seed. The greenhouses also have cucumber, tomatoes, and squash we are trying to decide which produces the best crops. There are also peppers, aubergines and a few lemon plants grown from pips. For some unknown reason the orange and lemon trees that I bought at great expense earlier in the year have died - the orange died first and a few weeks later the lemon died as well, they were growing beautifully with lovely blossom and new leaves. I have no idea what caused their demise as I nurtured them according to the instructions, used citrus compost, watered and fed them, kept them warm - so if you have any ideas let me know!
The upper animal-proofed plot has carrots(traditional orange varieties plus some purple coloured ones which were freebies), onions, mange tout, runner beans, sunflowers, jerusalem artichokes, french beans, various squashes, red cabbage and there was an area for sweetcorn but these never germinated so there was a gap which is now filled with a few left over sowings.
The other area that Steve cleared up the top has potatoes growing and these seem to be ok without being caged off - the rabbits and deer seem to be ignoring them.
I will try and post a bit more frequently but its very weather dependent - sunny days are for outside!
Sunday, July 26, 2009
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