Hello I'm in Liz Zoraqb and this is Byther Farm and today we're going to look
at some of the seeds that you can sow in August.
The good news is is not too late
to sow seeds now to still be able to get a harvest this year and here's some of
the things that I'm planting right now.
So this morning I cleared the area where the peas had been, cleared a lot of weeds
away and then I use my rake to create a wide strip and then I've sown Nantes carrots.
I've broad sown them, so I've sprinkled
them right across rather than in straight lines and hopefully we
shall get a nice carrot crop before the end of the year. Carrot seeds don't
germinate well if they dry out. I'm going to give them a good water and then pop
some green netting over the top of them, actually lying on the ground, to try and
reduce the evaporation over the next few days while the seeds start germinating.
This piece of netting is far from perfect. Out a choice I would have a
really nice wide boards down there, but I don't have any. And I can reuse this time and time again.
So that's what I'm doing!
You can also sow lettuce, choose a non-hearting
variety of lettuce, so something with a loose leaf like an oak leaf or a
lollo rosso. These are ready to go in the ground now, but I'm going to sow some more
for succession harvesting of them.
And I'm also going to sow some chard. This one's a five color chard.
I really like chard as baby leaves in a salad, I'm not a huge fan of the leaves
as they get bigger, but I do really like the stem. So I cut the leaf off, give that
to the birds and then I use the stems roasted which I really like. So in
the oven, roasted with a bit of garlic and salt and pepper,
mmm love them. But they can go in now.
I'm gonna start some seeds off in the
polytunnel, but when I came in I have noticed that we have visitors and not
just visitors, we've got invaders!
And they're munching their way through vast quantities of kale in here. So first
thing I need to do is get the kale out. I'm not going to get rid of these
caterpillars, I'm going to take them with me. They can have the kale, but they can
have it on the compost heap.
It's surprising how much damage they can do
in such a short space of time, completely stripping leaves, seemingly overnight.
Now I noticed these yesterday and I would guess they've been here for
a few days because they've got quite big, So they're not tiny caterpillars, they
have been here for a few days, I haven't noticed them, but I'm more than happy for
them to have this kale as long as they have it outside.
And it's also the
perfect time to start sewing pak choi. So it's really good, this can be sown during
August and September. Pak choi is really fast growing so you can be harvesting this
as a sort of cut and come again leaf, in about 4 to 5 weeks.
I'm also going to start sowing spring cabbages, so this one is a variety called
Wintergreen and so this will get planted now, it'll get transplanted in
September and we'll be harvesting this in April and May during that hungry gap.
There are quite a few kales that you can sow now. So I've chosen a really pretty
pinky purple one and I'm going to harvest the leaves when they're very
young put them in salads because I think that will add a really nice color to
our salad mix.
I'm also gonna make another sowing of a sixty-day broccoli
so broccoli raab. As yet I haven't had an enormous success with these but I'm
gonna try again because I'm determined that I'm gonna have some of this
broccoli to eat. What's happening so far is it's gone in and I haven't watered it
enough and it's gone to seed before it's had a chance to develop fully. So it's
going to seed it three or four inches high.
I'm going to give it another go.