Cutting Corners in the Garden

It's been wet here lately.  The rain is still welcome after a long dry spell but the last week has been persistently wet and grey, with the prospect of considerable rain to come over the next few days.  Today was a reprieve though and the sun even shone for a time.  It was a chance to get into the garden.

Several weeks ago I planted a bed of winter things, mostly lettuce, various quick growing leafy brassicas and a few carrots and beetroot to shape up for spring eating.  The leafy plants were just broadcast on the bed and raked in.  This can work well but I expect to do one thorough hand weed to favour the small vegetables.  The trick is to get it done at the right time - when the weeds are big enough to grab but not too large and shading out the delicate vegetables.  It's cutting corners, I suppose.

Yes, I missed the timing and then it started to rain.  The weeds took over and most of the leafy veges were buried, weak and battered, underneath the dominating weeds.  It was time now to cut my losses and clean out most of the bed and replant.  The shortcut of broadcasting has failed me this time.

In the photo the bed on the left is the one I had to half-clear, and this time I planted in short rows across the bed - easier to weed later!  I have to net because feeding quite a few chooks here encourages a fine flock of sparrows who rip into leafy plants, even cabbages and large brassica.  Silverbeet is shredded.

I also carefully prepared a second bed - the soil is wet - and planted more winter leafy greens.  My method here was to carefully cultivate with a long-handled Niwashi to break and loosen the soil and then rake a little to even the bed. A light dusting of my general organic and mineral fertiliser was added to augment the overall fertility of the beds, on top of earlier composting and fertilising.

It's latish here to plant (although I do have frost cloth to use on the frames to extend the season) so what did I plant?  Lettuce, Red Russian kale, misome, mizuna, mibuna, minutia, red chicory, corn salad, tatsoi, pak choi, miners lettuce were the main varieties.  Many of these are quick growing and hardy and make good winter salads.  If you're not familiar with some of these, useful details can be gleaned at  Kings Seeds  .

Another trick of timing was the mild temperatures that the wet weather brings.  The ground is still warm and rainy weather here in the Motueka area is not usually cold.  The other factor is that I knew lots more rain was to come and germination should be quick.  Most of the seeds were not covered as the rain will do that.  We'll see how it goes.

A corner cutting exercise was also carried out in my bigger Pear Orchard garden.

As we finished a double row of corn, the tops were chopped down and put on a compost heap.  Again, it was wettish and I didn't have long to work.  I planted broccoli and cabbage seedlings in the quickly weeded and lightly worked space between the stubs of the corn plants.  I've done this before and it works quite well.  The corn roots gradually rot and don't seem to affect the growing brassicas.  I will weed more outside this double row and will net it also.

Update:  It has indeed rained lots since I planted and remained quite warm.  I expect to see plants emerge quite quickly, including weeds!
It has been stormy and windy in areas around us, doing plenty of damage but we have had no wind to speak of here.  Weather can be quirky!