Circular economy at garden level

The broccoli here was sown in September, overwintered in pots in the greenhouse and planted in the manure bank in March.

The last few years I have been experimenting with planting quite densely - as many as 13 plants of 1 m2. It still gives nice heads of 2-400 gr, and when the first head is harvested, a pile of the large old leaves is removed to give light and air to the other heads, and the hopefully many subsequent side shoots.

The hens are happy with the green supplement, and thank you by providing material so that the broccoli can be fertilized in the form of chicken manure solution (the water out on the ground!) To boost production.

The manure bank ends up throwing about 6 kilos of broccoli off (as well as even more leaves for the hens) before the plants are removed, the manure bank gets a bucket of compost soil from the chicken farm, and basil is planted out in late June.

Circular economy at garden level.

Written by Peter Norris