Phew - catching up
It's hard to believe that it's a week since I last updated the blog - a combination of being very busy in the garden and also pretty tired (been going to bed with Persephone a few times lately!) I do have some pictures to upload but as I'm pretty worn out from a hard day's gardening, I will leave that for another time and just bring things up to date with where we are (oh daer, lots of words, no pictures):
It's been really hot over the last few days, so there has been a lot of watering going on as we've been trying to help the plants (especially the thirsty, flowering or newly-transplanted ones) cope with days under a strong sun. I think nearly everything has made it, although a few plants weren't super-happy. The weather has started to cool down a bit now - still warm, but with some cloud cover to protect us all from the strength of the sun - so I'm hopeful that we can get away with a bit less watering going forward, especially in the case of plants that just hadn't yet got thoroughly established, and those that now have a bottle watering system in place (pumpkins, runners, carrots for now - courgettes to come).
We've been doing a bit of weeding too, but not systematically - just a bit of hoeing here and there or pulling up weeds as we go around. It seems to be more or less under control, for the most part, so we can't be doing a lot wrong on that front! Work on the back patch has more or less halted, especially during the hot weather when digging is no fun, and the nettles are creeping back here and there, I just hoe them whenever I can and take comfort that most of the patch has either already been dug or has a big piece of carpet on top!
At the farm, E has planted out leeks, chard, carrot and beetroot into that "sixth bed", the roots and onions bed. H has planted out 9 courgette plants (in addition to my 6 plants!) and although it was touch and go whether they would survive the mini-heatwave, at least 8 of them are looking really good and the other one seems to have been munched quite a lot, so may not survive. E has also put in a butternut squash (all her other plants got eaten, just the one survived) and H says she has 12 more butternuts at home. Clearly, we are going to be a bit short of space!
We have flowers (or the beginnings of them) on almost everything now: potatoes, broad beans, tomatoes, peas, runner beans, dwarf beans, raspberries, sugarsnap peas are all in full flow (the broad beans and peas have got loads of pods on too); the pumpkins have got buds. The mangetout at home are flowering and beginning to form pods, but the ones at the farm are a bit further behind. The peppers at home have buds - I potted them on into a (shared) tub half-full of manure and topped up with compost, where they seem pretty happy now - but again those at the farm are a bit further behind. The tomatoes at home have flowers and a couple of small fruit - how exciting!! - and the tumbling tom at the farm is flowering, but not the moneymakers, which are still very young - they are now divided into 16 pots and all look pretty good, so I'm not sure now whether to divide them further or not - certainly not until the weekend, I think. Four of the plants are in the greenhouse now and four are outside. I decided I needed the space in the greenhouse for other things, particularly the melons which will not grow well outdoors, I think. There are some fruit on the raspberries at the farm, but very little and they look a bit weedy, as plants, frankly - we have decided to give them until next year to show a bit of leg after which we may give them up as a bad job. I think they will recover, but E is more doubtful.
My cucumbers have just started hardening off - the three plants are a really good size now - and today I made them a cucumber tripod by pushing three branches into the ground and lashing them together with string. It is at least as sturdy as the bean frame (but that isn't saying much, even after I retied and sorted it out a bit today...) I think I will start the courgettes hardening off tomorrow, as they are certainly large enough to plant out now (and starting to get flower buds, I think) - although I haven't decided whether to add them to the nine plants at the farm or whether to keep them at home. I don't think we can eat the fruit of six courgette plants though, so I think I will take at least a couple up to the farm!
The brassicas are also growing on well, and some of the cabbages (those we haven't "thinned" and eaten) are starting to heart up now, which is a little bit exciting.
Meanwhile, I've been squishing the aphids on the broad beans and we've been collecting slugs. The supply of slugs and snails seems to be slowing up (we found a few snails the other day that were laying eggs, or which had eggs inside them when we squished them for the chickens - ewwww!) The aphids, meanwhile, are hanging on tenaciously - the numbers fluctuate a bit but are basically steady, it seems, although there aren't as many ants now - still a few, though - but I reckon if we keep the numbers down by squishing then the plants will cope and, who knows, maybe the ladybird cavalry will turn up at some point. We've also found some caterpillar eggs on the pumpkins and brassicas (and I caught a caterpillar too) but apart from holey leaves there isn't much sign of the caterpillars themselves - I think we just need to keep our eyes open and hope that they eat potatoes instead of brassicas. Or something.
On the pumpkins today we found some white stuff. The one on the compost bin seemed to have a dusting of something, which we are hoping is just something (insect debris?) from the tree overhead as it is covering all the leaves. That one also had a slime trail all around one leaf, although not much seemed to have been eaten - pumpkins are pretty hairy / prickly so maybe not an easy snack for slug or snail. Anyway we put round some (human) hair from a bag we got off City Farm Woman today as she tells us that slugs won't cross it, because it moves when they try and freaks them out. We'll see! (I also put some around the lone butternut squash and a nearby marigold, and have more to do another day - E is a little freaked out herself by the idea of using human hair.) The other pumpkin had just on one leaf some different white stuff, that seemed to be through the leaf so it showed top and bottom. No idea what it was, but I just removed the leaf and crossed my fingers...
Recent sowings / seedlings:
We've been harvesting salad, young cabbages and herbs, and even tasting young pods and tendrils from the legumes, as well as the wonderful eggs of course!
The chickens are doing well and producing 2 eggs a day routinely now. Yum! We have at last got a plan for a proper fence to keep them off the veg plot - chicken wire between posts a couple of feet from the edge of the beds (to give us a path down the side) and with gaps for access where we will use the current mesh thingies as "gates" to let us in but keep the chickens out. We've got everything we need to build this now, it's just a question of getting it done! E is already clearing the grass / weeds away from where the path will go.
On the houseplant front - my geranium is going great guns and now has lots of leaf and 3 flower heads. The purple shamrock is also doing amazingly well - lots of new, healthy shoots coming up and it looks great, although no flowers yet to be seen. The random aloe is also fine but I'm not so sure about the aloe chinensis. I repotted the 3 overcrowded families a few days ago into 15 new pots... I wasn't sure they would all survive as I was a bit brutal but looking at them over the last couple of days they are all looking very sorry for themselves - pale and flaccid. I left them in the GH as there was no space for that many indoors and the sudden heat may not have done them any good at all. I brought 3 back in today in the hope that it may revive them - and of course cooler weather may help too. I don't mind losing a few but I want to keep 2-3 for myself and a few for others who've been promised plants!
The only other exciting bit of news is that last Saturday was Sheep Day at the farm and E and I did a felting demonstration / open workshop type thing for a couple of hours. I made a rather nice little square with a flower on, E made a sort of swirly pattern. We used uncarded wool, which didn't felt together well. Mine seemed to do better as I worked on teasing out the wool a bit before layering it which I think was a similar action to carding. The carded wool is much softer and it straightens out the fibres too, and the children who felted using carded wool got some really good results. Lesson learned: get carders!
It's been really hot over the last few days, so there has been a lot of watering going on as we've been trying to help the plants (especially the thirsty, flowering or newly-transplanted ones) cope with days under a strong sun. I think nearly everything has made it, although a few plants weren't super-happy. The weather has started to cool down a bit now - still warm, but with some cloud cover to protect us all from the strength of the sun - so I'm hopeful that we can get away with a bit less watering going forward, especially in the case of plants that just hadn't yet got thoroughly established, and those that now have a bottle watering system in place (pumpkins, runners, carrots for now - courgettes to come).
We've been doing a bit of weeding too, but not systematically - just a bit of hoeing here and there or pulling up weeds as we go around. It seems to be more or less under control, for the most part, so we can't be doing a lot wrong on that front! Work on the back patch has more or less halted, especially during the hot weather when digging is no fun, and the nettles are creeping back here and there, I just hoe them whenever I can and take comfort that most of the patch has either already been dug or has a big piece of carpet on top!
At the farm, E has planted out leeks, chard, carrot and beetroot into that "sixth bed", the roots and onions bed. H has planted out 9 courgette plants (in addition to my 6 plants!) and although it was touch and go whether they would survive the mini-heatwave, at least 8 of them are looking really good and the other one seems to have been munched quite a lot, so may not survive. E has also put in a butternut squash (all her other plants got eaten, just the one survived) and H says she has 12 more butternuts at home. Clearly, we are going to be a bit short of space!
We have flowers (or the beginnings of them) on almost everything now: potatoes, broad beans, tomatoes, peas, runner beans, dwarf beans, raspberries, sugarsnap peas are all in full flow (the broad beans and peas have got loads of pods on too); the pumpkins have got buds. The mangetout at home are flowering and beginning to form pods, but the ones at the farm are a bit further behind. The peppers at home have buds - I potted them on into a (shared) tub half-full of manure and topped up with compost, where they seem pretty happy now - but again those at the farm are a bit further behind. The tomatoes at home have flowers and a couple of small fruit - how exciting!! - and the tumbling tom at the farm is flowering, but not the moneymakers, which are still very young - they are now divided into 16 pots and all look pretty good, so I'm not sure now whether to divide them further or not - certainly not until the weekend, I think. Four of the plants are in the greenhouse now and four are outside. I decided I needed the space in the greenhouse for other things, particularly the melons which will not grow well outdoors, I think. There are some fruit on the raspberries at the farm, but very little and they look a bit weedy, as plants, frankly - we have decided to give them until next year to show a bit of leg after which we may give them up as a bad job. I think they will recover, but E is more doubtful.
My cucumbers have just started hardening off - the three plants are a really good size now - and today I made them a cucumber tripod by pushing three branches into the ground and lashing them together with string. It is at least as sturdy as the bean frame (but that isn't saying much, even after I retied and sorted it out a bit today...) I think I will start the courgettes hardening off tomorrow, as they are certainly large enough to plant out now (and starting to get flower buds, I think) - although I haven't decided whether to add them to the nine plants at the farm or whether to keep them at home. I don't think we can eat the fruit of six courgette plants though, so I think I will take at least a couple up to the farm!
The brassicas are also growing on well, and some of the cabbages (those we haven't "thinned" and eaten) are starting to heart up now, which is a little bit exciting.
Meanwhile, I've been squishing the aphids on the broad beans and we've been collecting slugs. The supply of slugs and snails seems to be slowing up (we found a few snails the other day that were laying eggs, or which had eggs inside them when we squished them for the chickens - ewwww!) The aphids, meanwhile, are hanging on tenaciously - the numbers fluctuate a bit but are basically steady, it seems, although there aren't as many ants now - still a few, though - but I reckon if we keep the numbers down by squishing then the plants will cope and, who knows, maybe the ladybird cavalry will turn up at some point. We've also found some caterpillar eggs on the pumpkins and brassicas (and I caught a caterpillar too) but apart from holey leaves there isn't much sign of the caterpillars themselves - I think we just need to keep our eyes open and hope that they eat potatoes instead of brassicas. Or something.
On the pumpkins today we found some white stuff. The one on the compost bin seemed to have a dusting of something, which we are hoping is just something (insect debris?) from the tree overhead as it is covering all the leaves. That one also had a slime trail all around one leaf, although not much seemed to have been eaten - pumpkins are pretty hairy / prickly so maybe not an easy snack for slug or snail. Anyway we put round some (human) hair from a bag we got off City Farm Woman today as she tells us that slugs won't cross it, because it moves when they try and freaks them out. We'll see! (I also put some around the lone butternut squash and a nearby marigold, and have more to do another day - E is a little freaked out herself by the idea of using human hair.) The other pumpkin had just on one leaf some different white stuff, that seemed to be through the leaf so it showed top and bottom. No idea what it was, but I just removed the leaf and crossed my fingers...
Recent sowings / seedlings:
- Today I sowed some peas (Kelvedon Wonder) at the bottom of the runner bean frame at the farm, the idea is that these will be growing up the beans and ready to crop once the runners themselves are running out of steam, in early autumn. It could even work! ;)
- At the weekend (Sunday) I sowed some sneaky carrots (Early Nantes) in O's box which I hope will make up for the decimation wrought on the first sowing by rotten slimies.
- Last week (Thursday) Persephone sowed some Marigolds (which started to come up Monday) and I sowed some Basil (started to come up today) and Nasturtiums (no sign yet). We also sowed some coriander, parsley and garlic chives to fill in the gaps where the slugs have been feasting in our herb box - I don't think they have come up, although it's hard to tell with all the existing seedlings to confuse matters.
- I pricked out the borage - 10 seedlings into 3" pots, and 4 others which got a bit scorched so I've left them in the large pot to grow on a bit more before I separate them.
- There is still no sign of the cumin or soapwort, which I've taken out to the greenhouse and decided just to leave them be for now and see what happens. It's been about 2 and a half weeks, but that isn't forever so we might get some action yet.
- I wanted to transplant the second sowing of asparagus into root trainers to grow on until next spring, but I don't think they are ready to be shifted from the module tray yet as when I turned out the first one it had only a very small rootball (and it was a double, which easily separated) - so I've just done that one and left the others to grow on some more before I interfere with them.
We've been harvesting salad, young cabbages and herbs, and even tasting young pods and tendrils from the legumes, as well as the wonderful eggs of course!
The chickens are doing well and producing 2 eggs a day routinely now. Yum! We have at last got a plan for a proper fence to keep them off the veg plot - chicken wire between posts a couple of feet from the edge of the beds (to give us a path down the side) and with gaps for access where we will use the current mesh thingies as "gates" to let us in but keep the chickens out. We've got everything we need to build this now, it's just a question of getting it done! E is already clearing the grass / weeds away from where the path will go.
On the houseplant front - my geranium is going great guns and now has lots of leaf and 3 flower heads. The purple shamrock is also doing amazingly well - lots of new, healthy shoots coming up and it looks great, although no flowers yet to be seen. The random aloe is also fine but I'm not so sure about the aloe chinensis. I repotted the 3 overcrowded families a few days ago into 15 new pots... I wasn't sure they would all survive as I was a bit brutal but looking at them over the last couple of days they are all looking very sorry for themselves - pale and flaccid. I left them in the GH as there was no space for that many indoors and the sudden heat may not have done them any good at all. I brought 3 back in today in the hope that it may revive them - and of course cooler weather may help too. I don't mind losing a few but I want to keep 2-3 for myself and a few for others who've been promised plants!
The only other exciting bit of news is that last Saturday was Sheep Day at the farm and E and I did a felting demonstration / open workshop type thing for a couple of hours. I made a rather nice little square with a flower on, E made a sort of swirly pattern. We used uncarded wool, which didn't felt together well. Mine seemed to do better as I worked on teasing out the wool a bit before layering it which I think was a similar action to carding. The carded wool is much softer and it straightens out the fibres too, and the children who felted using carded wool got some really good results. Lesson learned: get carders!