Black gold & other treasures

I'm not talking about oil, but something of far more interest to us in our organic gardening activities at the Annecy Gardens: well rotted farmyard manure.  The Council was kind enough to provide us with a heap of this:

We transferred some of this to the beds:

This manure is a great way of improving the soil texture, increasing the soil's ability to retain moisture during dry periods & the soil's capacity for remaining oxygenated when it's wet. Also a good way of increasing soil nutrient levels, something particularly significant when growing greedy crops like courgettes, pumpkins & squashes.

Courgette seedling

We planted quite a few different varieties of these, including 'Verde di Milano' courgettes, & winter squashes including 'Anna Swartz Hubbard' squash & 'Blue Banana' squash. The last of these is a rampant grower if provided with adequate moisture & soil fertility.

As well as providing us with manure, the Council has very kindly created two new beds for us, either side of the main gates to the Annecy Garden. We have mainly planted ornamentals here, but also some courgette plants, edible Alliums & lettuces, including 'Really Red Deer Tongue':

'Really Red Deer Tongue' lettuce in a compost block

These lettuces were grown in the compost blocks mentioned in an earlier post & they're looking really nice plants.

Because the new beds are probably the sunniest of any in the Annecy Garden, they're more prone to drying out than any others & we spent a significant amount of time this evening watering the new plantings:

Watering brassicas which had been planted by a guerilla gardener since our last Monday evening session

The beds in the garden are looking very pretty, a mass of flowers of rocket, phacelia, kale 'Redbor' & borage & the flowers are humming with bees, mainly bumble bees, but also some honey bees.

Beds full of flowers: Phacelia tanacetifolia, rocket Eruca sativa, borage Borago officinalis & kale 'Redbor'

The bees were also visiting the broad beans & field beans. Looking particularly pretty were the 'Casasa Midwinter' broad beans, this strain has flowers in shades of pink, red, black & brown. The seeds of this variety are initially pinkish-red or green, but ripen to a dark purple colour. I have been selecting this strain on my allotment for nearly 20 years now, the plants are derived from a number of  heritage varieties including 'Crimson Flowered', 'Red Epicure' and 'Estonian Purple Seeded'. I generally have some spare seeds, so do get in touch via this blog if you'd like to try growing this strain.

'Casasa Midwinter' broad bean, here being visited by a bee

A colour variant with the 'Casasa Midwinter' beans

A brighter red

I heard this charitably referred to as being 'sepia coloured'

Apologies for the blurred photos this week, must have got my mucky finger over the camera lens.