Monday 17th October
Having to wait in for deliveries meant I arrived on the plot quite late in the afternoon and would only have a short time on site as I had to have an early dinner before an association committee meeting.
I started by digging out some more compost and spreading it on a strip of the patch where I had just sown the green manure. This was because I realised my winter onions and garlic would not fit between the blueberries and the row of fennel that is still growing. So I will have to plant some of the onions on the patch of newly sown green manure! I raked the barrow loads of the compost out into a 3 ft wide strip before spending some time setting out rat poison in shelters made from plastic milk bottles with top and bottom cut off. I also put my two rat traps into two cut-down plastic bottle shelters placing each shelter close to a hole made by the rats. I have never caught a rat in the traps (lots of mice - but no rats) but I live in hope they will work sometime.
That done I harvested the raspberries which seem to go on and on and the 'wild' raspberries are getting
juicier and more succulent. There were a few blackberries as well, though they need training as they have sprawled all over the neighbouring beds. I already have the 6ft posts as I plan to train them up on wires along the fence.
I pulled up a cabbage from the brassicas tunnel as it had it had started to split. Most of the row were just loose clumps of leaves but two more were forming a heart. Next to them was a picking of broccoli. Fortunately the masses of whitefly tend to settle on the leaves, not the heads. I need to lift a section of the meeting and replace it with the roll of 2 inch square netting I have. Then the small birds can get in and hopefully gorge themselves on whitefly.
Having to wait in for deliveries meant I arrived on the plot quite late in the afternoon and would only have a short time on site as I had to have an early dinner before an association committee meeting.
I started by digging out some more compost and spreading it on a strip of the patch where I had just sown the green manure. This was because I realised my winter onions and garlic would not fit between the blueberries and the row of fennel that is still growing. So I will have to plant some of the onions on the patch of newly sown green manure! I raked the barrow loads of the compost out into a 3 ft wide strip before spending some time setting out rat poison in shelters made from plastic milk bottles with top and bottom cut off. I also put my two rat traps into two cut-down plastic bottle shelters placing each shelter close to a hole made by the rats. I have never caught a rat in the traps (lots of mice - but no rats) but I live in hope they will work sometime.
That done I harvested the raspberries which seem to go on and on and the 'wild' raspberries are getting
juicier and more succulent. There were a few blackberries as well, though they need training as they have sprawled all over the neighbouring beds. I already have the 6ft posts as I plan to train them up on wires along the fence.
I pulled up a cabbage from the brassicas tunnel as it had it had started to split. Most of the row were just loose clumps of leaves but two more were forming a heart. Next to them was a picking of broccoli. Fortunately the masses of whitefly tend to settle on the leaves, not the heads. I need to lift a section of the meeting and replace it with the roll of 2 inch square netting I have. Then the small birds can get in and hopefully gorge themselves on whitefly.
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