Well almost! Yesterday's rain kept me away but today I went down in the morning to start work. There was much to harvest but I was keen to move on in preparing for the autumn and winter.
I have two short rows of leek seedlings that needed transplanting. I already have a row of leeks bought from the Trading Hut and growing strongly but my own seeds took longer to grow to a reasonable size but are ready to move on. There were enough seedlings for a row of my Tornado leeks for 'autumn' harvest. Mine are so late that I don't think will harvest them until later in the year, perhaps even early next year.
The second row was of 'Musselburgh', the old favourite. I had an abundance of seedlings, more than enough for the single row I have room for - so my neighbour benefited from some free seedlings. That's better than throwing them in the compost!
Next I wanted to stake my row of peas that had grown to fill the net tunnel I used to protect the seedlings from the pigeons. The first step is to thoroughly weed the row as from experience I know that weeding later is very difficult from under the netting. Then I brought out my roll of chainlink fencing about 30 inches high and stretched it along the row before using canes to set it on edge for the peas to climb up. Unfortunately the peas had grown so tall they flopped on the ground so I then had to run a string along the row 'blanket stitched' onto the netting to keep the plants upright. Then I needed to move the water pipe hoops over from the row of exhausted peas and banged them into the soil, one at each end and one in the middle. Finally I had to untangle the netting and stretch it over the hoops and peg it down.
Having done that it was very late for lunch so there was not time to do any harvesting. I went home intending to get help from the family to harvest later in the afternoon. However the rain meant that that did not happen!
I have two short rows of leek seedlings that needed transplanting. I already have a row of leeks bought from the Trading Hut and growing strongly but my own seeds took longer to grow to a reasonable size but are ready to move on. There were enough seedlings for a row of my Tornado leeks for 'autumn' harvest. Mine are so late that I don't think will harvest them until later in the year, perhaps even early next year.
The second row was of 'Musselburgh', the old favourite. I had an abundance of seedlings, more than enough for the single row I have room for - so my neighbour benefited from some free seedlings. That's better than throwing them in the compost!
Next I wanted to stake my row of peas that had grown to fill the net tunnel I used to protect the seedlings from the pigeons. The first step is to thoroughly weed the row as from experience I know that weeding later is very difficult from under the netting. Then I brought out my roll of chainlink fencing about 30 inches high and stretched it along the row before using canes to set it on edge for the peas to climb up. Unfortunately the peas had grown so tall they flopped on the ground so I then had to run a string along the row 'blanket stitched' onto the netting to keep the plants upright. Then I needed to move the water pipe hoops over from the row of exhausted peas and banged them into the soil, one at each end and one in the middle. Finally I had to untangle the netting and stretch it over the hoops and peg it down.
Having done that it was very late for lunch so there was not time to do any harvesting. I went home intending to get help from the family to harvest later in the afternoon. However the rain meant that that did not happen!
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