AERIALROOTS004

Aerial Roots

In the penultimate episode of season one we share an Autumn plot update, a few ideas on prepping beds for Winter and a surprise find from a crop we thought was out of the game. Original music from Aerial Roots crew. Produced, recorded and edited by Antonia Canal & Balraj Samrai.

Show transcript:

Balraj: Hey everyone. Thanks again for joining us at Aerial Roots.

Antonia: I'm Antonia.

Balraj: And I'm Balraj.

Antonia: Last episode, we shared reflections on getting started at the plot, some harvest updates and an extra special breakdown of Balraj's famous kale crisps.

Balraj: This episode includes an update on how our crops are doing, preparing beds for the winter and an unexpected discovery at the plot.

Antonia: So let's head down to the plot, starting with a windy evening with autumn in the air.

Antonia: Right? So here we are, 25th of September 2020. Down at the plot.

Balraj: Yes and the autumn equinox has come in three days ago

Antonia: And Manchester, on form, it's like autumn equinox, boom, temperature drop, 15 degrees! I mean, we got that nice blast of sun, which I think the plants have been really liking. I feel like there's a ghost over there! But it's just Anita's makeshift, um, greenhouse situation. Shout out Anita!

Balraj: Shout out our Equiknoxx crew as well.

Antonia: Shout out our Equiknoxx family! Woop woop!

Balraj: Northern hemisphere, Caribbean crew, shout out Gavsborg!

Antonia: Just cause, just cause we love you!

Balraj: Shanique, Bobby, Kemmy, Jordan, full crew. But yeah, what we up to here? So we've been out on a dusky evening.

Antonia: Yeah, it's been a bit of a stealthy sesh, hasn't it? Like by almost cover of darkness.

Balraj: Yeah, but you can still hear an ice cream van. Why not? Why not? It's South Manchester, you know, it feels like winter's coming, but...

Antonia: But there's still room for an ice cream! Anyway, allotment. Um, well we've done some harvesting. Still enjoying the harvest season aren't we? What have we got? What's our loot today?

Balraj: Well, you've just picked one of, um, a certain something, a certain root vegetable..

Antonia: Root vegetable, ummm, we've got a turnip! It's quite...it's quite petite, but you know, I'm very pleased to meet it and to later eat it. It's quite pretty, actually, because I think you can get like a world of turnips in the UK. And it's got this lovely purple colour actually.

Balraj: Yeah I think we put it straight into the ground, didn't we? But maybe we're thinking perhaps we could try to do them in pots first.

Antonia: And I feel like it's interesting with the root veg because the turnip feels a bit like the beetroot, which we grew earlier in the season. And, with the beetroot, they did a similar thing, where like they had loads of lovely leaves above ground and then they'd started to like, the actual root itself was popping up, but they were a bit skinny. And with the beetroot, we like, we just sort of buried them again in the soil and they did swell up. But when we did harvest them, there was a part of me that was like, oh, maybe if we'd harvested them earlier, they would have had a slightly sweeter taste?

No, no hate on the beetroot, they were still yummy. So I kind of thought, well, this time, why don't we harvest this lone turnip? It's been, it's been asking to be harvested, hasn't it? You know, you did the Instagram posts, there was the dancing turnip or whatever the hell it was doing!

Balraj: It was like, go turnip go! We're rooting for you!

Antonia: So, um, yeah we'll probably scran that tonight, I reckon.

Balraj: Yeah, that will make a nice little side. And we've also got some beds that we've covered with some compost. Um, and we've tried to put some green manure down, which is a new thing.

Antonia: Yes, so tell us, tell us Balraj, what is green manure and why are we using it?

Balraj: Yeah, so green manure, still learning about this as well, but our plot WhatsApp group, Bethnal Drive WhatsApp group say that no soil should be just completely exposed over the winter. So I think by putting down green manure, it enriches the soil and it can fix nitrogen. I think it just can make it a lot more kind of full of nutrients for when you're growing in the next year. There's a few different types you can get. We've got another variety that we've not put down yet that we're going to try. Cause I think it needs to be done by the end of the month, really? By the end of September.

Antonia: Yeah before it gets cold.

Balraj: I think technically the clover should have maybe been all done by the end of August. It's still starting to come through and yeah, I think you dig that over. So later in the year, you'll cut it back. So we're going to just experiment and see kinda what we can do .

Antonia: It will grow and then we'll cut it and leave the cuttings on the bed won't we? They'll decompose. And it's more, more yumminess in the mix.

Balraj: Yeah, it's good vibes. And I guess it saves us messing with the bed too much. Kind of means that there's plants doing the work for us .

Antonia: We squeeze...not that we squeeze, we make time to come to the allotment, but you know, we're not here all the time. We have other stuff that we want to put our time into, we're passionate about this, but we're into the solutions, which mean we don't have to spend hours and hours, and green manure feels like that doesn't it?

Balraj: Yeah and I think another thing is we planted some marigolds earlier in the year and they've been really amazing at kind of blocking some weeds on the edge of the bed, so stopping some bindweed, like in a bindweed battle, it seems like. So I think that's another thing that saves time.

Antonia: Bindweed battle!

Balraj: Yeah, so shout those out. We've also put in some Japanese lettuce of some sort?

Antonia: Oh yes. I was, uh, I was trying to tell someone about this the other week. It's um, it begins with a K...we're going to find out the name of this [Komatsuna]. It's like a Japanese green, like an 'Oriental green'. I mean, this is, it's one of those things, isn't it, with the gardening world, some of the terminology feels like, yeah, come on guys, this is the 21st century, name where you're talking about!

Balraj: Yeah we want to know the specifics of the location.

Antonia: It will be a lovely, green, leafy, lettuce, type. That we can eat.

Balraj: And we've also put in some rocket, a variety of rocket into one of the beds that, you know, is an autumn variety too. We have planted a few of the flow...