We're back! Hear the latest plot tricks and crop updates from recent summer sessions. Original music from Aerial Roots crew. Produced, recorded and edited by Antonia Canal & Balraj Samrai.

Show Transcript:

Balraj: Welcome back to Aerial Roots.

Antonia: I'm Antonia

Balraj: And I'm Balraj

Antonia: Last time we gave you a tour of our plot. This time, we're going to jump into some sessions we did in July and August.

Balraj: Sounds great. Let's get over to the plot!

Okay. It is 2nd of July, 2020

Antonia: Yep

Balraj: Up at the plot, up at Bethnal Drive.

Antonia: First session of July.

Balraj: Yes

Antonia: Made it

Balraj: And, what have we been up to today?

Antonia: So today's big and exciting and special mission was planting out the kale! Woo!

Balraj: Yes, they're out!

Antonia: It's the kale's big day to join the allotment, get into its growing spot. Yeah, it's looking good. It's looking happy.

Balraj: Hmmm, kind of put it down. What is, what's the process here that I'm looking at?

Antonia: So, so there's, there's a lot, there's a lot going on to look at. So we, um, well, this bed as with many of the beds at our plot was covered , we'd sort of done some weeding, covered it, let it cook, added some compost, let it cook some more, and we'd since added some courgettes to one half, but the other half was still covered.

So we uncovered and discovered a world of insects!

Balraj: Yeah, we've displaced some more arachnids, I'm sorry about that.

Antonia: Yeah. We apologise to the spider community. We hope you find new prosperous lives.

Balraj: Yeah new settlement nearby, but you know some might stick around, some might stick around and help with some of the bugs, maybe, that might try and get to it.

Antonia: Some bugs good, some bugs bad. So we uncovered, did a little bit of weeding didn't we?

Balraj: Yeah.

Antonia: And then, then what did we do?

Balraj: We have put some eggshells down actually, did a bit of fertilizing with the seaweed fertilizer. Shout out the Shropshire seaweed fertilizer again. And there's also the structure that's been put around it, so.

Antonia: Yes

Balraj: Do you want to describe the structure for a bit.

Antonia: Yeah so kale is really delicious. As many of us know, um, as does much of the bird population know. So we've we've we ordered this, um, crop protection. It's nice, actually. It's um, it's made of aluminium. That's the main sort of structure of it. And then we ordered up this black netting. Bird netting, there was like a plethora of nettings you could get, of various grades. We just went for basic bird netting. Um, we assembled, assembled this on site and we've just sort of placed it over the kale and yeah, they're they're in their new home.

Balraj: Yeah.

Antonia: Yeah, so that was the big job today wasn't it, oh but there was other exciting news.

Balraj: With the garlic. Yeah. So garlic is looking ready to be pulled up. I've pulled one up today. So I'm going to go home and try and, um, hang that up. Cause I think it needs a little bit of time hanging up. Um, I think it's a few weeks and I think it needs to be about five degrees, five to 10 degrees where you hang it up as well.

So I'm going to try that out as well. Um, but yeah, it started to die on the leaves. They're going quite yellow. So. It's kind of garlic season which is cool.

Antonia: Yeah. And the garlic you pulled up looks proper, looks real proper, smelt great.

Balraj: And otherwise things are looking good. You know, beetroot is looking good

Antonia: Beetroot's thriving.

Balraj: Beetroot's thriving

Antonia: Thriving out here

Balraj: Beans are coming up.

Antonia: Yeah, exciting next project will be trying to cobble together some kind of structure for the beans. Listen out for an update on the bean structure.

Balraj: And courgettes have settled okay, they've not been annihilated. So it's, it's a good evening.

Antonia: Yeah. And it is, uh, is just to like set the scene a bit. It's actually after 10pm we're at the plot, it's been like what has felt like the first clear evening all week.

And it is absolutely beautiful out here. It's really peaceful and just, you can hear the birds and it's very still, and it's just like the expanse of sky when you're out here. Just makes me feel like so good. I think I come for the sky and stay for the plants.

Balraj: Yeah. Shout out our neighbors as well. Who've been supplying some tunes as well. Keeping us going.

Antonia: Some serious selections going down, bit of Dave, bit of Stormzy.

Balraj: Yeah, Burna Boy. It 's been fun. It's been fun.

Antonia: Yeah. I think that's a wrap for us tonight.

So that's where we were at in early July

Balraj: Since then we've harvested beetroot, harvested garlic, and generally our crops have been thriving.

Antonia: So let's forward to a session we did in August and you can hear how it's all going.

Okay. So we're back at the plot.

Balraj: Yeah. Yeah. We're here.

Antonia: You've had a bit of a few solo trips recently. Haven't you?

Balraj: Yeah. Yeah. I've been coming down on summer evenings

Antonia: Enjoying enjoying August vibes.

Balraj: Mm. There's this beautiful sunset I can see kind of around tonight.

Antonia: So for the listeners, this is us at the plot, half eight in the evening. Um, we're in the midst of the 30 degree weather that's finally reached Manchester.

Balraj: So August time, second week of August

Antonia: That's partly why we thought we'd come tonight, isn't it? Cause it would be cooler. And also, cause we need to give the crops a bit of love. They're not used to these extreme conditions, but they're thriving. You said that everything looks bigger even since two days ago. Right?

Balraj: Yeah so things are really sort of growing fast and they're getting a lot of sun. I mean, I thought that it might be a little bit drier than it actually is, but underneath the soil, I think, cause we've actually had some rain quite a lot in July, such a wet month underneath the sun, um, underneath the soil there kind of feels quite

Antonia: Yeah, we think it rained last night, didn't it? But they're going to get another dose of water, cause we have our newest piece of equipment to test out, don't we?

Balraj: Yeah. We have a hose.

Antonia: Presenting the hose!

Balraj: Yeah, just assembled it. So that's kind of a new, um, yeah, moving up in the world, like we just saw one of the plot, uh, kind of main stays

Antonia: One of the OGs and they were like, wow you've got a hose, you're moving up in the allotment world!

Balraj: I think it's a good sign that we just got one of those nods, you know like when you walk past someone and they just give you that kind of nod, yeah he clocked it. And again if you're coming here on the evening, you know, I guess it's, we've maybe got the bug a little bit or maybe I have, cause I think it's the third time within a week now.

Antonia: Yeah you've been getting that allotment joy.

Balraj: But I think what I've learned is, I think that kind of, you know, May / June time is a really, really, um, key time it seems like, because I think if you put the work in there, now things are established, you know, a friend of ours was saying, yeah, they reckon that things would probably be fine. You know, they'd probably last. So these courgettes I'm looking at, in front of us.

Antonia: So if we weren't to come, you think the courgettes would just do their own thing now? More or less?

Balraj: I think they'd survive. I think they would just cause they're, you know.

Antonia: I mean the courgettes look ready to take over the world. I've not seen them for maybe two weeks and they've got to have like quadrupled in size.

Balraj: They look like they want to escape the bed now.

Antonia: They proper, the cool thing about courgettes is like, you start them off in their seeds and they kind of like, from seed to the first seedling happens quite quick. And you can already tell they're kind of little monster vibes cause they're super big and they've just popped out of this seed. But then they're like, they're a cute little plant and they're just doing their thing on your window sill and you plant them out, month goes by, it's got to have been just a month, month and a half. And now it's like this tentacled massive leafed, amazing plant. It's incredible really, cause we grew these from seed as well. So we've literally seen them like that whole journey, isn't it

Balraj: Yeah which is amazing. And I think I remember looking over at one of our neighbors plots here and thinking those courgettes look huge. And actually now ours don't actually look so small in comparison. They're looking kind of like they're on the way, like maybe like about half the size those are now. So, um, you know, we're doing alright and the kales are looking big, um, just need to make sure the caterpillars and slugs don't destroy those

Antonia: And potential mole, FYI ,tip from our friend thinks that there could be a mole burrowing underneath the protection to get to the kale. You know kale is big across the animal kingdom it would seem

Balraj: Yeah, it's true. Especially the little ones. And then we've got the beans. The beans are looking like they're straight out of Jack and the Beanstalk now, which is good. They're all on one side.

Antonia: Yeah I made all this effort to build a whole structure. And they're just all like clambering to one section. To be fair I was a bit, I was a bit lax on the trellis, the jute homemade trellis, which I enjoyed, but is a little bit painstaking and I dragged my feet and now all the beans are clinging to one corner of the structure. But it's fine.

Balraj: The trellis making as seen on, probably seen on the Insta stories. There's a little highlight there.

Antonia: If you're not following us on insta you're missing out!

Balraj: But you might have also seen, we planted a few trees too. So we planted a gooseberry and tayberry tree. So they're looking quite cool now.

Antonia: I have a question, are they trees? Cause you refer to them as trees. Is that the term?

Balraj: Hmm they're maybe more fruit bushes aren't they?

Antonia: I mean, I quite like that you call them trees, but they're our, they're trees to us.

Balraj: Yeah, they're trees to us. And I think, yeah, I like that they're trees and I think, you know, we were talking about dedications weren't we as well for the trees, which could be nice.

Antonia: Yes. Yeah. We're dedicating the tayberry aren't we?

Balraj: Yeah. That's right. I'm going to dedicate that to my granddad, who passed away. Uh, the last of, sort of late in July, actually. So that's going to be a little dedication cause that was planted by me and my mum. So that feels kind of real.

Antonia: Pa, was like into his gardening wasn't he?

Balraj: Yeah. So he's into um, back in the farms, back in the fields and kind of kept doing a lot of planting and plotting when he moved over to the UK as well and kept a little patch going. Um, and even in their house until he was quite old, he used to enjoy growing methi and, and looking after um fuschia and things as well .So we've actually got a little bit of a fuschia plant that's from my grandparents' house as well. So yeah. So that'll be cool if that makes it and survives. Yeah.

Antonia: So that's us and our recent plot antics

Balraj: remember, you can keep up to date with us on the Insta @AerialRootsMcr. We'd just love to hear from you. Any questions, ideas, tips, please reach out

Antonia: And we'll see you next time.

Balraj: Keep it green.