Digging for victory (and cabbages)

Like most people who have flirted with back garden veg growing, Ian and I thought it was pretty easy.  Grow seedlings on a windowsill for a few weeks, plant in a suitable patch of earth, and wait for the rewards.  OK so my one and only potato harvest produced potatoes the size of small marbles and my broccoli plants were eaten by slugs, but even so I felt that I had the principle pretty much nailed.

What we hadn't considered were the problems that arise from scaling up; faffing around with a few plants in the back garden is all very well but on the farm we need to grow sufficient crops to keep 20 families in veg boxes.  This also means that a laissez faire attitude just won't do, as people's tolerance for pea-sized potatoes and holey leaves tends to wane quite quickly when faced with the prospect of actually making a meal from it every week.

On Saturday we were tasked with the job of planting out the cabbage seedlings from the polytunnel. The instructions were deceptively simple.  First, the vegetable beds, (which we had given a first digging over by hand a few weeks' ago), needed to be given a once-over with the rotovator - basically like a lawnmower but with rotating spokes underneath to break the soil into fine pieces (if I have been listening to The Archers closely enough, I think the correct terminology is a 'fine tilth'), followed by a second going over to incorporate a load of fertiliser from the closest compost heap.  After this, the weed barrier needed replacing and slits made for pushing the plants through, and finally, once the plants were all in the ground, the entire bed needed covering with a fine mesh to prevent cabbage white butterflies from laying their eggs all over our tasty young cabbage leaves.

We thought this all sounded very easy,  maybe we could potter around with the vegetables in the morning and then take on a 'proper task' in the afternoon.

However, it quickly became apparent that far from being 'pretty easy' planting out cabbages, particularly in the clay-heavy soil of the farm, was going to be backbreaking work.

The rotovator, much lauded labor-saver, found it almost impossible to break up the clods of earth, which had set like rock (or more likely, clay) after weeks of dry weather.  It was heavy, it was uncontrollable and on several occasions it gave up completely.  It was only at this point that Ben, who owns the farm, let us know that his pet name for it was 'the green gym' due to the total body workout that comes from using it.

The weed barrier was a nightmare to cut, refusing to yield to the penknife unless held taught,

Mr Rotovator

something that was pretty much impossible given its size and the uneven surface beneath.

Even transporting the cabbage plants from the polytunnel to the beds was unexpectedly time consuming.  The polytunnel is situated at one end of the veg beds, the designated cabbage beds at the other.  The small cabbage plants were in 10cm pots with around 8 pots to a seed tray.  A flimsy, wobbly seed tray that meant carrying two of them at once was guaranteed to result in accidentally tipping out several small plants.  We moved over 60 plants over many, many trips.

Ditto water.  Due to the dry weather, the only full water buts were located by the polytunnel.  I reckon each bed received at least 6 watering can's worth.

We were also tripped up by the logistics of getting each plant into the ground through the slit in the weed barrier.  For plants located near the edges of the bed we could cheat, lifting the weed barrier to dig the hole and add a handful of fish and bone meal, before replacing the barrier and dropping the plant into the hole.  But for plants in the centre of the bed, we needed to do all the digging through the slit.  It was difficult to get enough earth out to leave space for the plant and this was made all the more difficult by not really being able to see what we were doing.

Although this all sounds quite negative - it was certainly difficult work - but the sun was out, the day was warm and we had over six hours until we needed to go home.  Finally, towards the very end of those six hours we were able to stand back and look at several magnificent beds of cabbages. 

We also harvested lots of lovely rhubarb for the first veg boxes of the year, which this showed us that our hard work would actually lead to some tasty rewards.

And if I see a cabbage white butterfly fluttering anywhere near my lovely cabbages, I've got a water pistol and I'm not afraid to use it!