This Week in the Garden...

In these strange times, we’re having to adapt how we work at the farm, and this includes our gardening and growing.

This week we’ve been thinking and planning how and what to grow, aiming to use less input (we have fewer volunteers for safety reasons), but still producing decent amounts of food for our community.

One great method that we use already at the farm to boost productivity is companion planting. This involves planting different crop plants together, which mutually benefit each other’s health and growth.

An example of companion planting we’re starting this week is Tomatoes and Onions.

It’s still a little early to plant out tomato seedlings, so while they’re indoors, safe and warm, we prepared the bed where they’ll eventually grow. We did this by firstly removing most of the weeds from the planting area, and then working in some well rotted manure (thanks, animals!), which will improve the drainage of the soil and help to fertilise our crops.

In our bed, there were a few young burdock plants, which we lifted, and plan to use later. The roots go well in a veg stir-fry or can be used to make dandelion and burdock cordial!

After forking in the manure, we raked the bed so the surface was level. We then used a hoe to make a line, then dragged the hoe a little deeper along the line to create a V to plant in.

Onions sets should be planted between 5-10cm apart, to give them room to grow. They should be planted with the dry tip facing upwards, and the roots in the soil. They are pushed gently into the soil, so their tips are just sticking out. Make sure you’re planting yours the right way up!

The onions we planted today are the variety ‘Red Karmen’, which are nice as green onions as well as when fully mature. As another way of making what we’ve got go further, we decided to plant the onion sets closer together. This means we can harvest alternate onions before they’re mature, as green onions, leaving room for the rest to grow their full size.

You’d usually be instructed to start your next row of onions about 30cm away from the first row, but this is a little different when companion planting, as we are not just growing onions in this bed. We’ll be planting our tomato plants in between the onions, as it is said that the smell from the onions puts off certain pests. So, instead of planting the next row 30cm away, we planted it about 50-60cm away, to leave room for the tomatoes in the middle.

We also planted ‘Turbo’ onions, with golden skin. We planted these the normal distance apart from each other (5-10cm) and again left room in between rows for tomato plants.

Once all the onions were planted, we covered them slightly with surrounding soil, firming it gently with our feet, then watered them in. Finally, and importantly, we labelled the area with the variety and the date, so we remember what we’ve planted and when!

We planted our onions in quite a big space, but you don’t need this much to grow them. They’ll do well in a raised bed or large container as well.

Check our social media and the website to keep up with the gardens, and for tips on what to grow and how!

Happy gardening!