Tuesday 26th June • Sweet corn planted. As most of my first batch of sweet corn didn't germinate my second batch has only just got big enough to plant out. I only had 25 plants, not the 35 I had planned but it will have to be enough. I dug 25 4" deep pits just a spade width square at 18" spacing. Then I used my bulb planter to make holes at the bottom, planting the seedlings into the holes. That way I can concentrate the water where the plant can use it and later earth them up when they get tall. • Parsnips searched for. I have been pulling radishes from where I used them to mark the parsnip seeds I had sown. However I hadn't seen any parsnips! I started weeding and pulling any remaining radishes carefully searching for young parsnip seedlings. I had almost finished the row before I saw the characteristic leaf shape. One tiny seedling! Further on, at the penultimate station, I saw another slightly larger leaf. Once cleared I saw there were two seedlings side by side, one small, the other tiny! I decided to make a final effort by sowing at home in root trainers and perhaps another row on the plot. • Spinach harvested and thinned. Next to my abortive parsnip row was a half row of spinach under a net tunnel that had grown tall very fast in the last few weeks. The tunnel was supposed to create shade and reduce the chance of the spinach going to seed but the hot weather negated that aim. Removing the tunnel I pulled all the fully grown plants leaving just the small ones hoping I could harvest them later. However even the small plants are going to seed. I was able to collect a big bag of spinach plants that will provide quite a bit of leaf for several meals. • Watering. As a last task I set up my house and watering stick and, after watering the newly planted sweet corn, watered the remaining spinach, the runner and French beans and the root vegetables Friday 22nd June I arrived nice and early - for me - at 8.30 this morning as I am way behind and have lots to do. However, as I came in the gate someone was leaving and wanted the gate left open for them! Having emptied the kitchen waste into the compost bin I pulled out my hose and started watering the newly planted climbing French beans and then the runner beans using my 'watering stick'. This is the title I give to an aluminium tube (the handle from an old window cleaning brush) with a push on connector that fits on the end of my hose. It enables me to put lots of water right at the roots of plants so I only need to water from time to time, not every day. I then put lots of water in between the ridges of my potatoes, enough for the week however dry it gets. I then set about planting my five curly kale plants in the second brassica tunnel. (This tunnel will stay longest on its station so I plan to plant my late winter brassicas in it.) (Method. Scrape the grass cuttings mulch of a 9 inch patch, carve a spade wide 4 inch deep hole, then plant a plant from a 3 inch pot in a hole at the bottom of the hole using a bulb planter and lots of lime (to help avoid clubroot). Moving on I used my plough attachment (Wolff tools) to carve a trench on my legumes bed. A bit of tidying up with the spade and I had a wide trench, 4 inches deep and a spade width to sow my peas. I had one packet of this year's seed from D.T.Brown via the RHAA seed order system, to which I added two packets of two and three year old seed. I hope the mice will eat a selection and leave enough seedlings for me. Covered with a net tunnel and, with a Lidl sonic mouse scarer at the end of the row, I hope for a good row of the variety Hurst Greenshaft. I then noticed the weeds growing in the patch next door destined for my sweet corn and squashes. I spent quite a while digging them up concentrating on those tallest and those about to seed. Halfway through I realised the time and left the rest for my next visit and started harvesting. I cut the last few spears of asparagus, having found and killed just one asparagus beetle and one larva. I will now leave the shoots to form the feathery fronds to enable the plants to strengthen ready for next year's crop. Spraying with Pyrethrum against the beetle may be necessary. I then moved on to thinning the rest of the row of mixed Ruby and Swiss Chard. The thinnings make a lovely tender spinach-like vegetable. I left alternate red and white young plants where possible to give an interesting crop in the future. Next I dug out a row of garlic as the tops looked dead, ready for harvesting. While they were not as big as in the shops my wife tells me the flavour is more intense which is as I like it. While doing that I put a fork in under the neighbouring row of onions to break the roots so they begin drying off. Every single one of my autumn planted sets has gone to seed this year, probably due to the weather. They will not store whole and strung up in the usual way so there will be lots of chopping and freezing in the next month or so - unless someone advises differently! While putting everything away I noticed the Loganberry growing at the end of the plot, mixed in with nettles, Comfrey and various junk, had started to fruit so I picked a few ripe fruits to see if I like them. Tidying away the hosepipe took as long as all the other tools but I got home in time for morning coffee at just after 10.30 pleased at how much I had achieved. Thursday 7th June After arriving early to help unload a delivery of compost to the Trading Hut, I planned to stay all morning on the plot. I wondered if I was going to be rained off at first but it was only a shower and I managed to carry on in a coat and hat until I got too warm. Then ensued a rather comic situation as the zip got stuck on the jacket too high for me to slip it off over my head. I eventually escaped with help from a nearby plotholder friend and had to cut into the zip to undo it.
One of last year's patches for root crops had become overgrown as well but many of the weeds were flowering and some old protective netting was tangled in them. I used my billhook to cut the netting free and then started cutting everything down with it. I had almost finished when something made me start pulling the weeds by hand. I found some of them just broke off but a good proportion came out by the roots. It was so much better that I finished off pulling weeds out from by the fence. Once I had finished on the main patch I had a huge heap of seeding weeds I cannot compost so will have to dispose off some other way. All else failing I shall have to take it all to the tip! The soil is already very dry so I shall probably have to soak the patch before digging it as I have seedlings growing on in the greenhouse which can't wait for rain.
At last the plot is beginning to look reasonable; though don't look too hard at the bottom right (very weedy strawberry patch) or up round the shed!
Before going home, I drowned the bindweed and harvested asparagus, rhubarb, new potatoes and 4 radishes. Back tomorrow hopefully leaving me clear on Sunday for the Working Party. We've got a bit of clearing up round the Cabin and its new decking and lots of potholes to fill in! Sunday 3rd June
It was warm! And I had to put in the posts for my runner bean frame! I arrived with my trailer full of bags of garden waste from a neighbour that had stuck to the waterproofing paint on the bottom of the posts. Having dropped off at the Trading Hut to get some compost, some pots, and the thumper I set the posts in position having separated them from the bags. By the time I had thumped the posts in I was very hot and I needed a break so returned the thumper and went for coffee and cake at the cabin. Refreshed, I went back to the plot and screwed the rail in position and set the canes in position with the runner bean shoots wound round them. Finally I wrapped some one foot high wire netting round the row to keep the red legged partridge from pecking out the growing points, something that has happened to me in the past. I removed some weeds growing alongside the path and around the plum tree only to find multiple suckers growing from the base of the tree, which I removed. I then gave the ground inside one of the Brassica tunnels a quick hoeing and watered the seedlings. By then it was too hot to work so I cut some asparagus spears and went home with them and some Pak Choi a neighbour had given me. Friday 1st June Having been rained off yesterday I grabbed the chance to spend part of this afternoon on the plot. I first emptied the kitchen waste bin into my compost bin and worried that the smelly mess was exposed so, after chopping it up with a spade, I covered it with some of the grass cuttings already in the bin. Next I started on earthing up the maincrop potatoes in an effort to reduce the chance of a blight infection (following the Blightwatch warning yesterday.) I remembered to scatter some slugbait along the rows before I started as well as what was left in the pot of potato 10.10.10 fertiliser. This is almost the only time I use my 3 prong cultivator and draw hoe. I loosen the soil by drawing the cultivator along the side of each row and then use the draw hoe to pull the soil up into a ridge over the plants. The first two rows (Sarpo Mira and King Edwards) have made so much growth that I couldn't cover them but the second two rows (a second row of Sarpo Mira and a row of Cara) finished almost totally hidden. Hopefully the slugbait and the fertiliser will do a good job. That done I moved on to digging out the chard that was going to seed. There was only three plants of rainbow chard but there was a whole row of Swiss chard. I cut the tops off the rainbow chard and a couple of tops of Swiss chard to take home, the rest became very expensive green manure as I chopped and folded the stems into the compost bin. That was added to by the seeding parsnips which I then also pulled up. I kept two of the best parsnip roots to try and make parsnip crisps at home. Finally I hoed off the weeds that had sprung up in the shelter of the row of Swiss chard, leaving them to die off inn tomorrow's promised sunshine. I then decided to hoe between the rows of seedlings in the new roots bed as the weeds are growing at a fantastic pace and overwhelming the young plants. I had almost finished when a flash of red in the bed beside it caught my eye. It was a ripe strawberry in amongst the weeds smothering the strawberry patch. When I looked closely I found several more and started pulling out the weeds to expose the fruit. I soon found it necessary to fetch a hand fork and began weeding in earnest. While I found no more ripe fruit there was quite a crop developing, as well as a heap of weeds. Fortunately all the weeds are shallow rooted and came free fairly easily and I soon had completed nearly half the bed. Having exposed the strawberry plants and their ripening fruit I realised that the birds would also find the crop so I had to go and find the length of netting I had stored away and cover the whole bed. That done it remained for me to tidy up and go home, cutting four more asparagus spears to have with my evening meal.
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