06 Apr - Broad Beans & Peas

It's been a lovely Easter Monday, the weather has been very warm indeed, an ideal day to do some work on the plot. The first job of the day was to plant out the broad bean plants that have been raised in root trainers in the greenhouse.

There were 19 Bunyard's Exhibition altogether so I planted out 5 rows next to the onion sets. I raked in a sprinkling of Growmore first and then just popped them in with a trowel, a quick and easy job. To fill up the rest of the bed I planted 5 rows of Hurst Greenshaft peas, a variety I've not grown before. I just scraped out a shallow trench and sprinkled the peas in, having first divided up the packet into five even batches for each row. (Pic - this bed is now full with garlic, onions sets, broad beans and peas).

I'll be sowing parsnip and carrot soon so it was time to take the covers off the required bed and see what shape it was in. I dug the bed over last summer after taking over the plot then tilled it in the  late Autumn. However, the bed had a fair number of sprouting Sycamore seedlings due to the tree behind the shed. It dropped loads of little helicopter blades throughout the Autumn, perhaps I need to get the covers on earlier at the end of the season. (Pic - bed with loads of Sycamore seedlings).

Despite the Sycamore the bed was in pretty good condition through a little damp; the sun forecast this week will help dry things out a little. I'm hoping that a quick once over with the tiller will uproot the unwanted weeds and seedlings and the sun will dry the roots. A quick rake over and it looked fine.

I got plenty done today though there is a fair bit to do this week, I think I'll put my main crop potatoes in soon too along with barring in some root crops. That's it for now.