Transplanting Brassicas with a Little Dog Help

We planted out some Brassicas today: Purple and White Kohlrabi and a bed of Purple Sprouting Broccoli.  Although we've had these growing all winter, and we've been harvesting them for the chef, I am trying to get one more opportunity for these cool-loving crops before the garden gets taken over with the summer plants.  The tray of Purple Sprouting Broccoli above was seeded in our greenhouse about 9 weeks ago, and then pricked out into our small rose pots about 4 weeks ago.  We do an off-set spacing with them in our garden beds, taking maximum advantage of the space by doing so.  Here is what I mean:
Broccoli gets pretty big when mature, so we space them about a foot apart, and start with five across.  The next row's plants are then placed in the middle of the previous, in an off-set (or grid) pattern.  That allows us to place more in each bed.

Since I wanted to give James and Rois as many "farmy" experiences as possible, they were asked to help out popping the seedlings in the ground.  As usual, they cheerfully obliged. 

One of my main tips on transplanting seedlings, is to get them deeper in the ground than they were in the pot.  Don't compact the soil as you back-fill.  We give them just one gentle push to settle the soil around each fragile root-ball.  Looks like the Brits have the technique down:

Our farm dogs, Indy and Trinity, always find lots of opportunities to check out what we're doing and try to horn in on the action.  We're never too busy to give them a quick cuddle before carrying on.

Dogs certainly can make life more interesting, and our dogs are real characters.  I don't think we'd have nearly as much fun around here without them.  Sara always has a smile for a dog eager to distract her from her duties.

Comments

[Cheryl Z]

LOVE BROCCOLI! I like Nutri-Bud from Seeds of Change, does well for our family. I've often tried to find seeds for "Broccolini", which is sometimes available in our grocery store. It has a long tender stem, and a small floret at the top. It is not Broccoli Raab. I'll keep searching for it, LMK if anyone knows of a gardener's source for it (there is a commercial production source for it, but so far not in smaller quantities).