This small bed we decided this year to crop it with lots of different vegetables and see what you can kind of get in a small space of mixed harvest so everything you see here was planted I Feel March 26th. We were filming for a different video In fact, and I popped them in while being filmed and it was plants or seeds that I had ready and if I start from the end, I'll just You can see what's here. So like that's P. Alderman my favorite tall vigorous P which we're picking for shoots So that's regular repeat harvests every five to seven days For another six weeks or so Between there was some rocket a spring slanted rocket planted rocket Which doesn't crack for long Senate flowers and gets lots of flea beetles. So that's now come out it's a bit of a gap there but these plants will fill that up because Next to that we have carrots now coming really nicely So they were sown Seven weeks ago and they're just about to really take off carrots always take a long time to get going the small seeds they're little little plants and then the fennel and this is Looking a bit sparse because it it was actually crowded out by spinach until five days ago And that was spinach that had been planted in October. So was well rooted into the ground It was very prolific this spring and we were picking at small leaves for salad And then some of them were just starting to rise off of it So I thought we'll take them out and that will allow the fennel which had been struggling a bit for Nutrients and moisture because of the spinach to enter its last and rapid stage of growth all being well I've not actually tried this combination before but it's looking quite promising to me you can see the fennel bulbs just starting to swell a bit and Because it's an early fennel. That means they will need harvesting in June If you leave them too long in the early summer, they then rise up quickly to fly this that's for June harvest Here we have onions certs balboni's but they're thick clumps there's Average of eight or even ten sometimes in a clump which means that to get a decent sized onion That's too many. So we'll twist out some of the onions in about two weeks to eat as salad onion So it's a kind of double harvest there The lettuce here we have been picking already. So to harvest so far taking off the lower outer leaves and Finally some beetroot on the end multi-zone beetroot Which will crop in about six weeks time and then all of these plants are I'll have some new plants ready to pop in as soon as these finish like between the fennel I mean it could be there's many things that could be but before even finishes I could pop in some French beans or some beetroot or some more lettuce and I'll consider all those options to do another little plan of what's going to be the the second phase of cropping in the summer So here we are third of June And look everything's grown in this small bed fantastic harvests. We've been having already mostly lettuce actually and pea shoots and spinach The spinach that was here three weeks ago has now finished. It was starting to rise up to flower and Right about the time soon after we were here filming last We just twisted it out and these small fennel plants that were between the spinach. They've just gone wash so what I want to do is just take it line by line in and do one or two picks just to demonstrate what's ready now and How things are growing on what you can expect to harvest also on going a little bit starting with the beach view here, for example, so these the multi stone beet root ball toddy and They're swelling up so what I'm doing is Like if there's a bunch where I see one of a nice size to harvest second twist it out and Have a beetroot That's actually the first one I've had and there are a few now So we'll be coming back to these over the next month to twist out a few beet roots down then when we need them Whereas the lettuce is much more ongoing Every week really it needs picking every week. It's best because then the leaves don't get too big and the plants de tidy So I just go around the edge taking off the outer leaves Twisting gently as I do to get all the stem off That's all the stem of each individual leaf and then you get nice harvest of Of the outer leaves each time and come back in a week on it and you'll get the same again and then The onions do use it bulb onions, but because they're quite a few in a clump again. You can do this thing of fact on my knife for this because they're quite deep in the ground and So I'm just easing it gently and using the knife just to cut in a root level a little bit and pulling it up and then There's basically a spring onion, but it's red onion as you can see so it's pretty nice onion to eat as a salad onion and that leaves say four or five maybe six in a clump to grow on and make bigger Bolognese later on And here in the fennel, we have a continuing sequence of inter planting so Just last week I popped in these French bean plants between the fennel because if the fennel is going to finish soon within two weeks this Will be all harvested and eaten and it needs to be also because the fennel does start to go up to flower in June So you can't just expect it to carry on growing and swelling it. It's pretty much optimist Asia now and in fact, there's one here where I mean, this is one of the very ready ones looking really nice actually, so I'm just gonna Twist it and pull it a bit and then I'm cutting at the root and Well there we have a gorgeous fennel, but I just trim off the base of the root Take off the Actually, that's pretty pretty enough. I mean all of that is edible but normally we've got plenty of this kind of foliage so I'll trim it like that and Yeah, nice meal. So what that then is leaving is French bean plants nearby Which suddenly when the fellows gone rather like the fennel tea laughter the spinach was taken out will grow nice and fast and It's interesting because I read so often that Other plants don't like fennel and fennel has a bad effect on other plants growing and yet It's working here that's all I can say the real carrots which I sewed on 26th of March so that's nine weeks now normally reckon nine ten weeks in spring to get your first pulling and Here I am just Gently easing out one of the larger ones that I'm seeing and Yeah, I was coming out nicely That's Early not a Nice carrot so there's a few here one could just keep coming back and pulling them and just early taste of something delicious And then the pea shoots so they're ongoing and Again they need like the lettuce. They need frequent picking because Otherwise the they just get so big and it means you know, if you keep picking the shoots like this you will encourage them to keep cropping but they are just starting to flower so that tells us that maybe there's only three more weeks of pea shoots because the emphasis of growth will switch from making shoots as in new stems into flowers for pods So if they're e one could say stop picking in three weeks and then get a harvest of a few peas it won't be many because They've be so relentlessly picked, but that is an option It depends whether you want the space to plant something else So I'm now just going to do a little bit of harvesting more half sting and then I'll put it on the truck just to show you what's Ready, but how much can come off this bed at this time of year? So, yeah, you can see what we've had from this one small bed 4 feet by 7 feet and Lettuce leaves fennel beetroot Carrots spring onions and pea shoots. That's pretty nice selection of spring vegetables from not much space type management Having plants ready? It's fun Here we are on the 29th of July 8 weeks since the last filming of this bed and you can see how much has changed in that time All the spring crops are finished and we're now into the summer plantings Some are going to plant some are not quite so I'm going to show you for example the cabbage here. I Popped in these red cabbage 3 weeks ago after the beetroot. We had a lovely harvest a beetroot here And they were good watering pots in the cabbage all was fine until I noticed just last week Sweet midge. It looks like has eaten out the heart leaves of these cabbage plants Which means basically they're not going to do it. There's only one. That's still healthy and growing So I'm actually just going to show you what I would do in this situation like that. There's just no point sadly in hoping for a crop from these so therefore the compost heap and I Got my little dipper here and Some plants and what I'm thinking to do is to pop in some Swiss chard there So it'll be work in this room for or even closer to the edge 1 2 3 modules, I'll just put one in now You get the idea? Where I make you a hole that's quite deep because I these chard seedlings We multi sowed them on the 12th of July. So that's about three weeks ago and you can see there's Three seedlings we aim for in a clump and that's going in quite deep because there's quite long stem on these chard and I Want them to be tucked in there? So they're not blowing around in the wind So this is now red cabbage and chard I tidy up the lower leaves of these as well The leaves like that aren't helping the plants to grow particularly Then we have celery Which I popped in between lettuce so there were let's just say that we're still cropping at the time the salary went in again around three weeks ago and We kept it. Well watered celery really nice water and they look promising. I'm happy with them They were sown right at the end of May. So they these are two months old plants already celery is quite slow to grow and Then the onions were not a success for two reasons One it is my fault. I the variety I chose this one Lilla It's great for spring onion it's called a dual-purpose variety, which means you can let it grow on to make a bulb onion as well but what this one often does I've realized now is Seeding if you leave it in the ground too long so that's making a seed head there and it means that a lot of the energy of the plants going into this stalk and eventual seed head and There's relatively less actual onion there that there is still a nice onion and at this stage if you get seeding onions out of ground You can eat them You know we were having some for supper last night but and just put it all in but if you leave it too long this Seeds thought becomes rather woody And so actually that we had a few spring onions with me, but that's all the onions we got there were mostly were Baltus that we're eating faster now, so again, um this is now empty space and Because at this time of year everything is going so fast It's really advantageous if you can have some plants ready I Had to pop in and take advantage of the lovely light and warmth that we have in July and I'm going to pop in some chicory seedlings so These are chicory is four radicchio Which we sowed Just under four weeks ago Fourth of July so 25 days in fact and Give you an example of Take one for me in there You see these plants are growing and not much compost. They really well. It's a very good organic compost more than gold one seedling per plug and In it goes again quite deep. That's very dry. So I'll need to water that watering is Important for the seedlings particularly because until they get their roots down. They're very vulnerable to drying out on the surface Then here the French beans I've just started cropping and they're doing nice nice Bean pods, this is a yellow variety and We picked them on Friday, so that's just three days ago and you remember they were fennel here earlier on in the video and They cropped beautifully. We had lovely big fat bulbs the French beans into planted between them harvests the fennel and then the French beans can grow and so The French beans at the third planting this year Spinach first then from planting last October picking through the spring then the fennel now the French beans This is where we had carrots and the carrots gave a great harvest And as soon as the carrots were out two and a half three weeks ago. I popped in these leeks So these were well grown leek plants in quite big modules again, I made quite a deep hole pop them in and we've watered them well and Finally on the end where they were the peas for shoots. We've popped in these multi sown beet roots, so These should grow like the ones did the other end Three or four in a clump for harvesting October November even into the winter And we'll come back here and have another look in six weeks or so and you can see how all this is turned out You It's now the 8th of September So that's around 6 weeks since we were here last on the 29th of July and you can see quite a bit of change Some things grown some things have disappeared finished and new plants like here There were three cabbage last time these red cabbage and two of them Got attacked by the sweet midge which eats at the heart leaves and so they were kind of coming to nothing They would have made small stunted huts so I twisted them out about a month ago And we popped in Swiss chard Ruby chard multicolored chart and that's growing there now Which will give leaf harvest through the autumn. We just taken a few so far, but they'll really come good through September October that's a nice example of how it's good to have some plants spare that you can pop in if unexpected gaps occur Here the celery that was about half that size. Probably last time it's going steady celery is not the fastest growing vegetable, but it's Largely dependent on water actually, and I think we maybe haven't given it quite enough it has rained some of the time but we've also have been watering the celery just needs a lot of water and It's going to rain a lot tomorrow. So that would be good. Otherwise, I would give it some more water That'll be for harvest in about a month and onwards These were not here last time we popped them in Early August and they followed the onions that were here. So this was red onions now, it's these chicory x' Radicchio chicory so they are going to make a heart a nice round ball all being well of tight red leaves for harvest in November This was French beans and Between the French beans we popped in radish. So these are Radish for the autumn that like muli radish with a bit of color actually I was given the seed and not growing it before we'll see You can see that the leaves are not looking brilliant. They've got a lot eaten by flea beetle. Mostly that's making these holes and The flea beetle particularly like the young small And then ass the leaves get bigger than holes also get bigger and it all looks rather dramatic However, the plants are surviving and the flea beetles are now on the decline as they don't eat so much in the autumn, so Bad as these look I'm confident that they will Pull through and make some nice radish and we'll check that out in the last of this series in about seven weeks time This by the way, the radish is the fourth planting in this space so this was spinach then it was fennel that will have seen in the videos and then it was the French beans and now it's Radish an example of what you can do with inter planting The leeks were small plants last time so you can see how they've grown and it's mainly maintenance and There's one thing I do with the leeks is removing leaves like this which are Rusty as the leek leaves get old. They Get these orange spots and then that's rust And I find that generally it's worth removing them because if you leave them the rust spreads a bit more quickly I've not found a way of stopping this rust happening but I can keep it in check by doing that leaf removal every couple of weeks or so and it's a bit the same for the beetroot where I Take to tidying the outer leaves, so I'm twisting off a leaf here for example Which is starting to go yellow leaves like that. I'm not really helping the beetroot to swell anymore And we've also had quite a bit of leaf miner which causes these brown blotches I mean that's a fairly small example of it, but it doesn't look good And if you've got more than half your leaf is say eaten by leaf miner you might as well take it off and put it On the compost heap. That's what I do and then at least it's not Spreading in the spot here. And there's one more thing. I'm doing which is the odd bit of weeding So for example, I just noticed a round sort of weed one of my least favorite because they're very rapid to grow from Small seedling like this into flowering and then dropping seeds so grounds always like that I'd either put that on converse or leave it there. It's a dry sunny day little dry and That's at the moment we're not actually harvesting much from this but there's a bit of a lull time following the summer plantings But we'll be there's a lot to pick here from about a month onwards. We'll start taking the larger leeks the larger beetroot Then there's some celery Harvesting radicchio is about a month after that lovely chicory hearts and some chard also coming up So it's it's a lovely autumn supply of vegetables from mostly the second summer plantings The 23rd of October it's the last of this series of looking at what You could crop in a bed like this through a year and as we reach the end of this growing season There's still a lot happening and I can harvest a few things from what's it? just give me an idea of what it's like and and also some harvesting tips like There's one here, which is actually not at all difficult But it just so pretty is just twisting off the larger leaves of the chard So we've been picking from that. There's also actually a red cabbage here that's feeling beautifully firm and You see it hasn't taken up much space on the end. I Lost two there, but the third one has come good and then these chicory hearts are amazing. They They're just solid and you feel a firm. What I do then is I could my little pulls I don't want too much root left in the ground to probably ever so many fine roots. It has a the It probably will regrow bit and I might need to remove that with a trowel but then what I do is just take off these outer leaves and You can see this this beautiful part in the middle Which is also called radicchio if you take off even another leaf it gets redder They are wonderful things So that would store for a while if you wanted to. Oh, you could eat it straight away. Whatever This is I'm going to put in my compost bucket Not wanting to leave any debris on the bed I'm also going to harvest a celery for you and I can show you something here that's going on which is Again, cutting out some of the root enough that it won't rip. Grow but the problem I've been getting here and it's common with celery in a wet autumn is Septoria on the leaves where you've got this browning it's mostly the outer leaves, but sometimes it can then get bad enough that it it dis colors the stalk the bit we want to eat and It does stop them growing as well in the end soup It's not good news and both see these salary you can see we've harvested quite a few and the rest are ready kneading harvest now so I'm gonna just trim off these outer leaves and There is quite a bit of discard some people I know love to eat this for soups and things and If you weren't doing that or if you don't want them when you have stir celery, it's good to remove as much leaf as you can because the leaves carry on taking moisture out of the stem and So much of it with celery is about having moisture in this well stalks I should say so I'll give that a little rinse Yeah, I wouldn't be able to sell one like that because it's not perfect looking but it's a lot of good celery there to eat Now these are interesting. This is the fourth at the fourth harvest here This year so we had spinach then we had fern although we had French beans now we got these radish. So these radish last time we were here they were looking pretty miserable as little plants in between the French beans and Amazing they've got these Lovely size Roots, they have very complicated names is from Baker's Creek heirloom seeds to me. They're looking really worthwhile I want to show you particularly why we had one for lunch yesterday and I was blown away by the color inside these radish at first you, you think it looks just like a Well, it's a bit like a muli therefrom They're very closely related to muli but they've obviously someone's done a bit of very clever breeding here know What I'm trimming off here at she's a little bit of damage at the bottom of that cabbage root fly It's a common pest on radish turnips that you're harvesting at this time of year It's the Flies come in and laid its little legs make maggots, but you can see how the damage is not too General if I cut down in the middle. I think we'll see some color there Yeah, it's just beautiful fact cut them in length way strips it's rather a nice way to to eat them They just look good And in fact, the flavor is is much more fruity than a normal radishes a little bit almost of apple flavor in there, sir Nice result so that was sown 29th of July and planted there about a month after that late August between the French beans And so the leeks here these followed the carrots and these are multi stones so you can't You could either harvest individual leeks or clumps like I'm doing here see I'm just pulled the whole thing up Because they're not planted deep They're easier to plant and easier to harvest so there we have four nice leeks and Again, just a little bit of trimming shows what a lovely vegetable there is here and How much nice food there is to eat? So if you look at the row across there, there's twelve clumps of multi-zone Leeks average say three So we're talking at 35 weeks of this kind of size in To harvest and the shanks are not long white they long if you like long white shank, then this is not your method, but We find these are very nice to eat. The the pale green and just not quite as sweet. There's a white one And I'm just gonna cut the main part of the top off give them a rinse and The little harvest basket is starting to look pretty nice and just to finish off I'll harvest a few beetroot to Get a bit of extra color in there. So here we got clumps of say three or four In a club and what I tend to do at this time of year is take out the smaller ones Because say I think at least four here? Not for small be tree and they won't store throw up. So these are good to eat now and then the big ones actually just fill them and Not even wash them put them in a box in somewhere cool and damp and they'll keep for most of the winter There so yeah, I've been naughty so beetroot look at that they got nice roots and again, six clumps or so they're average for that's 24 beetroot It not much space And if I just put all these in the basket? I'll show it to you. That's our harvest And And there could be quite a few more like this or there have been already quite a lot. So just one bed Through a season I hope you've enjoyed this video seeing the possibilities and how you can overlap plantings and what's good to follow with what you know Don't be too bound by rotation and all those other theories out there Spotty gap pop in a plant and have fun with that
