Planting sweet corn and looking for parsnips!

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

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