Winter sowings & worm gravy

Due to the great sheep invasion I’ve decided that until we can get our croft fences repaired or replaced, any winter vegetable growing will have to just be in the polycrub.

Autumn is definitely in the air, and I’ve been slowly clearing the pots of spent pea tendrils and bean shoots, freeing up space for successional sowings of winter vegetables and herbs.

The tunnel is still pretty full of plants:- tomatoes slowly ripening, beetroot, cucumbers, sweetcorn, carrots, herbs and squash, but now is the time to start the next round of crops if we want to continue eating through the colder months.

I’ve been in there over the last few weeks sowing seeds. The great thing is that they germinate quickly at this time of the year – which is a good thing, as we need them to get established enough to survive the winter in an unheated grow space. I’m trying my best not to have to subsist on neeps and tatties this year.

So far I’ve got pak choi, winter lettuce, black spanish radishes (exotic, I know – I don’t know what came over me) purple sprouting broccoli, spinach, rocket, more dill and coriander and a few more tubs of carrots on the go. They’re looking lush with promise at this stage, although I’ve been here before..

I’ve still got winter cabbage and kale to sow. We can’t overwinter without salty kale crisps and rumbledethumps (a Scottish dish of mashed potatoes, cabbage, onion and cheese, like colcannon) once the weather turns.

The wormery that we installed a few months ago is now coming into its own, and we’ve been watering the polycrub pots with worm juice every week. It seems to be doing the plants the world of good.

It looks like gravy, which I guess in a way it is. I try not to feel sorry for the worms that inevitably fall into the collection tray full of liquid and drown. It’s a hard enough life being a worm. Husband has an idea to use insect mesh to save them, which we will certainly try in the interests of worm colony morale.

I love the cyclic nature of growing: garden clippings and waste go into the compost or the worm bins, which get added back to the soil to support the next generation of plant growth.

This continual replenishment of nutrients and micro-organisms is essential in helping to build healthy soil, which is truly the heart of everything. I’ll just have to live happily with the scurrying, burrowing beetle and other insect life that it supports, and which I know is a good thing.

Someone once told me that if nothing was eating your plants, you weren’t part of the eco system. I’m pleased to report that we well and truly are.