8-May-2024: Sun, planting beans, more boxes

After months of rain and colder than usual weather, we had several days of sun - with showers from time to time of course. Nearly everything has visible growth over the span of a week, and it's time to start planting beans!

Two of the original bean frames made a couple years ago were covered in a thin plastic mesh due to supply issues post-COVID, but the plastic does not hold up well and we prefer to avoid it where possible. So a few hours were spent removing and then re-covering with chicken wire and an air stapler. Now all four of the frames are have metal mesh and were moved to a freshly prepared row to plant beans.

We built and placed three more smaller raised boxes by the south-east side of the field - these are mostly cooking herbs and flowers. Cardboard is used to suppress grasses and then boxes are filled with organic compost. Over time the cardboard will decompose while allowing deeper plant roots to grow through.

We also built a third 11m long box in a freshly rototilled row by the poly tunnels. Again cardboard is used to suppress the grasses. Our local timber supplier was out of 4.8m length boards so they delivered 5.4m lengths instead - which actually worked out better for this box as two boards nearly covered the 11m total length. But the timbers are heavy so we used the mower and small trailer to bring them into the field.

The boards are untreated in order to avoid chemicals wherever possible. The untreated timbers will usually last 3-5 years and can be replaced fairly easily. In future we are hoping to use self-milled boards from Spruce trees which were planted at the north end of the farm in the 1990s.