A year on...

We've now been living in our new home for a whole year! It's hard to believe as time has gone so fast, yet at the same time, this has become very much our home and it feels like we've been here for a long time.

Walking around the house and land, it has changed quite a bit during our time here, even though sometimes it feels like progress has been slow. There's still a lot to do, but then this is a lifetime project, so really we're doing OK. :) Sometimes, I suppose, it's good to take that step back to really look at things from a different perspective.

This last month has really seen a drop in temperature and we're now well into Autumn. A good time for bonfires to burn weeds!

Enjoying a weed-burning session, complete with melting marshmallows!

We've had our first frost and then some, so that's seen the end of some of our crops. The lettuce we managed to eat the last of about a week before the frost, so that was good timing! The courgettes and squash died off, so I quickly picked the unripe fruit to have as baby veg. I counted up all the big butternuts and we have enough for one squash a week until spring, so that's not bad going! (Now we'll see if they last that long... yumyumyum!)

A few more squash before the frosts came.

The chard is still going strong, and there are still lots of purple carrots as well as nasturtiums, so we've not reached hungry stage yet. Although I'll be sad to say goodbye to the beans.
As a lot of the crops have died back, there's now a lot of empty space waiting to be re-planted. I thought this would make a good opportunity to talk a bit about crop rotation.

There are a few ways to rotate your crops, depending on what you want to grow, and how much etc. I'm choosing a 4 year rotation system. This means that each bed will be growing the same crop in year 5 as it grew in year 1. This is generally long enough to discourage any pests or diseases which may otherwise hide in the soil, ready to attack the crops the following year. It also means nutrients don't get depleted, as different veg use different proportions of minerals to grow.

There is an exception to the rotation system, which is long term crops which come back year after year. I have a few of these, such as rhubarb, asparagus and raspberries. These have beds of their own and so are ignored when rotating crops.

The other 4 beds are divided as follows;

1. Brassicas These are vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale and turnips. 
2. Roots These are potatoes, carrots and parsnips etc, it also includes veg such as tomatoes and aubergines as, although they're not root crops, they're closely related to potatoes and so share many of the same diseases, such as blight.
3. Onions This group includes leeks and garlic and also courgettes and squashes, as these are prone to similar diseases, such as mildew.
4. Legumes These are beans and peas etc. This group is particularly useful to grow in poor soil, or before hungry plants, such as brassicas, as they 'fix' nitrogen in the soil, actually improving the ground, rather than depleting it.

Newly planted beds 

I've now begun my rotation, by planting out a few hundred onions, I went for about twice as many as last year, as that wasn't nearly enough, we'll see how this lot do! They went where there were some tomatoes and potatoes in the first place, so hopefully they'll be happy and disease free. :)

I've also planted some broad beans, which I saved from my crop earlier this year, where the onions and lettuce were. I've just got some peas to put somewhere and I think that's all I'll be planting this Autumn, the rest can wait until Spring when the weather will be warmer for them.

Sunset

Meanwhile, I'd better make the most of the light, days are getting rapidly shorter again. At least this means I get to enjoy sunrises and sunsets every day without having to interrupt precious sleep. :) Stay warm everyone!