Planting Bocking 4, New Mini Brassica Cage, Rain

Another break in the dismal weather on Thursday, so back outside for the afternoon. Just an hour of that spent sheltering in the polytunnel from rain. Still, got a few more jobs done, if not all I want to get sorted.

Planting my Bocking 4 Comfrey

The three Bocking 4 comfrey plants planted in the side border of the vegetable plot.

About a month ago I got three plants of Bocking 4 comfrey – that’s not a typo, Bocking 4 not 14. They arrived in 5” pots and could have been planted out immediately, but I just re-potted them and kept them under glass. The idea was to build up more roots and give me chance to work out where to put them and to prepare the space.

They’ve gone into the border just inside the walled vegetable plot. The soil pH was tested and is running quite high, between 6.5 and 7.0, which will be fine. The soil is pretty good, and so I didn’t add any compost. That can go on in the spring when the plants break from their winter dormancy.

Planted them 450mm apart. I’ve allocated more space than they’re using for now but should be able to split them next year to increase the stock. In just five weeks, they managed to start filling the new pots! Comfrey is an extremely vigorous plant when it has decent soil, nutrients and good light.

Even when it’s lacking those, once established, it sends its roots deep to draw up nutrients from the sub soil. A potential crop, sadly passed by in the search for labour efficiency above all things in modern farming.

Raised Brassica Bed

New mini brassica cage on raised bed

Some eight years ago, First Tunnels, kindly sent me one of their mini-tunnels to try. I reviewed it here. First Tunnels Mini Polytunnel Review Unfortunately it didn’t do too well in a storm, so I replaced the polythene with scaffold netting and turned it into an additional brassica bed.

As I’m moving onto raised beds, they’re easier on my back, decided to upgrade the mini brassica cage. The brackets that hold the pipe hoops were pretty seized with rust, and so I phoned First Tunnels and bought a new set of clamps etc.

Bit of a problem in that I’m using scaffolding boards to make the bed and couldn’t make the bed to the correct size as I needed more boards. So, it’s a little shorter than before. I’ll need to find my big hacksaw and cut the central pole back a bit.

The netting will need some alterations to fit the smaller frame. Oh well, the job’s three parts done, even if it’s not finished. Needs must when the rain drives!

Talking of Rain.

We’ve had a lot of rain recently in Wales. “Not unusual,” you might say, but the last lot was far more than usual. Carmarthenshire was particularly badly hit with flooding. Here, the ground was saturated, and a spring developed through the supporting stone wall by the house. A little stream running down the side of the house to the track.

Driving up to the vets, I saw lots of flooded fields. A little stream that’s normally easy to miss had become a fast flowing torrent, bursting its high banks. Doesn’t seem five minutes since they were declaring a drought.