Richard Corrigan's city farm

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I'm watching it myself from Santa Cruz, California, having driven through one of the main vegetable and fruit growing areas yesterday....

Spring!

 

Hellebore are blooming....

 

Garlic is thriving...

 

The fedge is looking lush with leaves, and the blackcurrants and blueberries have started work on blossoms....

 

And the corn salad is ready for harvest.

Germination City

Between holidays and work, I'll be away for most of April, so this weekend has been a blitz of planting. I have a lidl 'garden tent' and a cold frame - I'm hoping that the tender plants will do OK in these- can't leave them inside - and that all seeds planted this weekend will germinate, and only some will get eaten by the slugs. I'll either have a glut or an empty garden in May.

 

 

 

 

Happy Worms

 

We've been doing a lot of compost bin emptying and tidying this weekend. We're happy to see that our garden helpers/microherd are alive and doing well. There were lots of them in the middle of the newly harvested compost, mating and wriggling and generally squirming happily. The undergardener has a soft spot for the underdog, so he covered the fresh compost with weed contol fabric to keep the worms safe from the birds, and cosy and warm - awwwww!

First quarter 2009

Got off to a good start with peas and broad beans - they are in the garden and doing well. Any leeks planted earlier are growing, but not terribly fast. All the rest - cabbages, onions, calendula, lettuce have been destroyed by the slugs. Vast amounts of egg shells are not working.

The second phase of planting - tomatoes, borage, ore leeks are doing ok, but I have not exposed them to possible slug predation.

This week I am going crazy planting - mostly in paper pots - and hoping that something will survive my extended absence in April. You spend so much time looking forward to this point in time, and when it comes, it's not what you expected.

Outside, I have planted carrots, beets onions and early potatoes - and some in pots - this weekend I hope to plant the rest.

We are harvesting Kale, parsley, thyme, chard, corn salad. The daikon is going to seed. The leeks are almost all gone, but the autumn sown onions might be worth trying soon.

School update

School is out for Easter break, and lots planted in the past while. Earlier this week, we finished the raspberry planting - we now have 26 autumn fruiting raspberries in.

Earlier we planted 6 blueberry bushes, and more than 12 strawberries. And 3 rhubarb plants. In the wildlife bed, we have several currant bushes, and a josterberry and 2 apple trees. (We also have some Jerusalem artichoke in there).


Today we planted ot some 4 week old peas - they were looking good - especially the ones which got the worm tea. Just in case there's frost or slug damage, I planed another pea beside them, and some onions around them.

We have 8 or 9 huge pots with spuds - they have gone home with the teachers and parents, and hopefully will return to the school in good shape.

There will be a feast - or multiple - at some point in the near future...