One done...then more....

It has been warm spring weather these last few days, so Lester has been on the move with the Courtyard Project.

 

 

 

The first raised bed made, and it is to go here.....

 

 

And then he made some more...

 

And then we spent ages moving them about to see what were the best positions to put them in.



Eventually the job was done.

It took a lot of fiddling around to make it look like they were randomly placed.

 

They tuck in nicely to that part of the Courtyard, and there is still room for the tractor and van to have their turning circles, and be driven out of the back gates.

 

 

Two or three of the raised beds are going to have hats on them so they will become mini greenhouses because we have not got the poly yet and we need somewhere to start the seeds.

I thought that the beds would dominate the Courtyard, but it feels like the Courtyard itself has stretched itself to accommodate them.

So we have made a start on the Market Garden Project. It feels a long way to go before we are ready to sell to the public, but it is comforting to know that we shall have a good amount of vegetable produce for ourselves, which is something we have been lacking over the last year or so.

 

One thing, though, is that planting for ourselves and planting for the public require different mind sets,

Planting for ourselves means throwing a variety of seeds into various pots, probably hoping to empty the seed packets so therefore planting too many, and then having to find room out in the veg plots when the seedlings are ready to go out there. There would not be hardly any planning, just hope that everything would grow.

For planting for public sales, this has to be different. There has to be order. There has to be a plan.

 

Lester is a random man when it comes to seeds and planting outs.

I tend to be more organised.

He is excellent at harvesting the produce.

I tend to forget about produce waiting to be harvested.

He is the one who tends the soil, and tills it with the tractor.

I am at the other end, and jam, can, freeze, and dehydrate all that comes in.

In other words, we are a team, which we have to be if our Market Garden Project is going to work.

 

Lester has designated me as The Planner.

We are going to measure out the approximate space of each of the three veg plots,

then make a list of the vegetables to be grown in each one.

Then to apportion out parts of each plot on graph paper to represent what space we shall have for each vegetable.

So for Purple Sprouting Broccoli we would designate a space, work out how many plants we would put in that space, and from there we would know how many seeds to plant in the pots.

Sort of working backwards, that is what we shall be doing.

Instead of thinking 'oh we shall do a few pots of broccoli' and then find we have too many, we shall have worked out how many seedlings we need and then plant the necessary number of pots.

It sounds like a faff, but we would only need to do this for the first year, after that we shall be experienced enough to know how many seedlings to plant.

 

Lester is excellent at planting seeds and looking after them, so that he will do.

 

How are we going to sell the produce? Not sure. Got plans though, ...maybe markets, veg boxes, or a shop here, but the decision  will have to wait until the time comes. Sometimes you have to take one step at a time, concentrate on doing your best while you on that particular step, and have faith that the next step will appear.

It always does, that is what I have found in life.

 

It is another sunny day here, so I need to get out and do things.

 

Hope you have a good day.

 

Bye for now,

 

Vx