Friday 26th May
Having sweated at window cleaning in all that heat yesterday I determined to get up early and work on the plot before it got too hot. To that end I arrived on site at just after 7am. Before I started I put up the notice warning of another Hutton period when the blight fungus can proliferate, having had an email from the BlightWatch website.
I had brought a sweater that proved totally unnecessary and set to earthing up my potatoes. I found I could bury the Sarpo Mira, not that it is necessary for that variety, and almost cover the King Edwards. As I dug out the soil next to the asparagus bed I came across thick white roots like bindweed.
Disappointed I started digging them out stopping only when they got close to the actual asparagus plants.
It was only later while digging out bindweed along the fence that I realised I wasn't digging out bindweed but actual asparagus roots!
Having sweated at window cleaning in all that heat yesterday I determined to get up early and work on the plot before it got too hot. To that end I arrived on site at just after 7am. Before I started I put up the notice warning of another Hutton period when the blight fungus can proliferate, having had an email from the BlightWatch website.
I had brought a sweater that proved totally unnecessary and set to earthing up my potatoes. I found I could bury the Sarpo Mira, not that it is necessary for that variety, and almost cover the King Edwards. As I dug out the soil next to the asparagus bed I came across thick white roots like bindweed.
Disappointed I started digging them out stopping only when they got close to the actual asparagus plants.
It was only later while digging out bindweed along the fence that I realised I wasn't digging out bindweed but actual asparagus roots!
By then it was already warming up so I quickly earthed up the Maris Piper, but when I started on the second row of Sarpo Mira I found there was a mass of real bindweed root along the fence that took ages to dig out. As Sarpo Mira is so blight resistant, I decided to leave the row for now and earth them up when they have grown a bit more.
The far patch needs digging over for squashes but the overgrown rubbish filled strip showing on the left is where I want to plant my courgettes and needs alot of work.
As the temperature rose I opted for the less strenuous task of giving my peas something to climb. I had bought a roll of 2 inch galvanized wire from InExcess so I rolled it out on the grass outside the plot and cut a length. Unfortunately the roll was only 6 metres long, not the 10 metres I had optimistically misread from the label so I will only get 2 rows of support from it. (I should have bought the longer roll which would have worked out less expensive per metre!) It took a while to flatten the mesh and stake it down with some old garden stakes (given to me by a neighbour) interspersed with some old canes I had lying around. Each stake/cane had a yogurt pot fixed on the end to stop me gouging an eye out and to stop the netting catching on the tops. Unfortunately the netting, though long enough, had quite a few splits in it so I needed to buy a new length at the Trading Hut. It is also barely wide enough to reach down to the ground on either side, a problem I will have to resolve by reducing the height of the mesh support in some way.
I had brought down a few bags/bins of grass cuttings from my neighbours at home which I added to the compost bin. A good layer of dead leaves is called for to balance the green/brown mix of materials.
At 9.30, as other plotholders arrived, mainly to water their plots, and the temperature rose, I got into the car and went home for a second breakfast feeling very good with myself.
The far patch needs digging over for squashes but the overgrown rubbish filled strip showing on the left is where I want to plant my courgettes and needs alot of work.
As the temperature rose I opted for the less strenuous task of giving my peas something to climb. I had bought a roll of 2 inch galvanized wire from InExcess so I rolled it out on the grass outside the plot and cut a length. Unfortunately the roll was only 6 metres long, not the 10 metres I had optimistically misread from the label so I will only get 2 rows of support from it. (I should have bought the longer roll which would have worked out less expensive per metre!) It took a while to flatten the mesh and stake it down with some old garden stakes (given to me by a neighbour) interspersed with some old canes I had lying around. Each stake/cane had a yogurt pot fixed on the end to stop me gouging an eye out and to stop the netting catching on the tops. Unfortunately the netting, though long enough, had quite a few splits in it so I needed to buy a new length at the Trading Hut. It is also barely wide enough to reach down to the ground on either side, a problem I will have to resolve by reducing the height of the mesh support in some way.
I had brought down a few bags/bins of grass cuttings from my neighbours at home which I added to the compost bin. A good layer of dead leaves is called for to balance the green/brown mix of materials.
At 9.30, as other plotholders arrived, mainly to water their plots, and the temperature rose, I got into the car and went home for a second breakfast feeling very good with myself.
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