Planting underway!

Amazing progress now!

I mixed together all of the stuff that I had. It was not quite enough to fill both boxes and I bought a bit extra which was still not enough but will have to do for this year.

The picture shows the two empty boxes, and half of the ingredients: 80l of Pindstrup Plus, 84l of sveppamassi sterkur; Hekla pumice (two sorts, 24l of coarse and 60l of medium).

The coarse pumice was not as suitable I think, so I mixed that in near the bottom. Here is a picture of the medium pumice, with a spade for scale.


I had been thinking of using wood for the dividing lines - still think that will be smartest but as a cheap solution for this year I used plastic coated washing line, tied to screws. Not so pretty but very fast :-)

After I had done all of that it took no time at all to plant/sow things! For the seeds and the onions sets all I had to do was push in my finger to make a hole. The potatoes I planted by digging down almost to the bottom, placing the potatoes, and filling in. Piece of cake!

In the deep box I planted:
3 squares of some French potato, funny shaped salad-type
1 square of Icelandic red potato
3 squares of parsnips (javelin)
3 squares of carrots (Nantes 2)
3 squares of carrots (Amsterdam 3 sprint)

In the shallow box I planted:
4 squares of onions
1 square of spring onion (North Holland Blood Red)
3 squares of strawberry plants

I watered the boxes a little feeling sure it was going to rain anyhow!




Finally, I covered both boxes with agricultural fleece.
The filling and planting was spread over two days. It is drizzly today so it is great that I got the work done while it was dry. I plan to sow a box of mixed salad leaves when I get the chance. I have the bean plants indoors still, really did sow them way too early so not sure if I should resow, or even try sticking beans straight in the boxes since I have left overs and nothing to lose.