I realised this week that if I don’t write down what I do every day, then by the end of the week, I am worried that I didn’t really do anything very much. And this is May. If we don’t get everything in the ground real soon, I’m going to be hungry all winter.
The problem is motivation. It doesn’t take much of a knock-back from the outside world to really puncture a hole in the spinnaker of this here pirate ship.
But, we take our positives, and carry on, and it turns out I did quite a lot this week.
I did a lot of work in the vineyard. I have no idea if any of it is going to show results, though. I mentioned in previous newsletters, the ground up there is truly terrible. Also, the seeds I’ve put in are all saved from last year and I have no idea if any of them are going to germinate given the rocks, the couch grass and the desperate lack of rain. But, I put in:
I row potatoes
4 rows sweetcorn
6 rows sunflowers
50m² pig-mangolds (Runkelrübe)
When I talk about a row in the potager, that’s just under 8m long. A row in the vineyard is more like 35m long. I am getting really good at hand ploughing!
I’ve been trying to calculate how much pig food all of this becomes, but the variance is so huge, it could be anywhere from literally none, to almost all. And the none scenario is not me being excessively negative. It could happen.
I hope not. I’d really like this to be the year when we start never buying pig food again (not gonna happen) - and I’m really keen on being able to make my own sunflower oil. Like, really keen.
Also, I tidied the greenhouse, took out the top layer of last year’s soil and replaced with with something like 40 wheelbarrows of the best compost I have ever made. The tomatoes, peppers, chillies and aubergines are all now in.
Mowing every day. At least 2 hours, at least 50kg of grass clippings per day.
The lack of serious snow over winter, the desperate lack of rain, the dryness of the soil and my prognosis of a hot, dry summer means everything is going to be covered in the thickest mulch you can imagine. Every drop of water that falls on the ground this year has to stay there. I am seriously advising my fellow gardeners to not make compost this year. Almost everything you would normally put on the compost heap should be going directly on the ground as mulch this year.
This week, I am planning on:
More stuff in the vineyard - sorghum, fodder carrots, sunflowers, sugarbeet
All of the roots seeds into the ground
The “wild fruits” project
Plant those trees that I’ve still got in pots.
Hopefully, transplant all the rest of the beans (if they come)
At some time, I should probably write a word or two about my vision for The Barracks as a celebration of the best that humanity has achieved. Part of which means building a library. For now, I have been sent two books and they are sufficiently different that I can reading them at the same time. So far, I can recommend them both.
And with that, I shall get this thing in the post and wish you all a great week (in the garden, hopefully!) and see you on the socials
Great dollops of love
The Pirate Ben
Hallo Ben, ich habe Dich gesehen bei einem DW Beitrag. Wir kommen aus Bad Kreuznach , das kann nicht weit weg sein. Wir würden super gerne Hallo sagen und deinen Hof kennenlernen wenn Du dazu Lust hast. Ich würde mich riesig über einen Austausch mit Dir/euch freuen. Liebe Grüße, Christian