Lockdown Veggies

We are very lucky to be here at the Croft in these strange times of lockdown and quarantine. Lucky because of the space to move around outside, lucky because we have livestock that require us to get outside, lucky because we are naturally isolated from the outside world, 4km up a dirt track from the village, and lucky because we have helpful, kind, thoughtful neighbours - people who look out for each other in difficult times.

Just before the lockdown, Hester, the daughter of a friend from Cornwall, and her friend Kerry, came to stay for the night before dashing across the border to France, and then back to England.

We devised and then built an experimental raised bed in the vegetable garden, using hazel poles:

A sticky situation

Hester and Bed

 It's been a total success. We planted it with courgettes (zucchini) and they have bloomed, with the fruit just forming now.

To Marrow is Another Day

Thanks to brilliant planning by Hester and Kerry (or, possibly, good luck), the bed is 1.4 metres x 1.4 metres - in other words 2 square metres*. So if I'm bored in the lockdown I can measure precisely how much water the plants are getting, by emptying 4 litres into the bed - 2 litres per square metre. 

Covid does seem to bring out the obsessive gardener in me...

*Thanks to my dad, a civil engineer, for a correction here