Yes this latest update is exactly that. But I'm not talking about my tardy blogging. No, I'm talking about this year's growing year.
An unintended consequence of this blog entering its second season is that it gives me an opportunity to compare exactly how things are this year with what was happening the same time last year...and just how different they have been.
So different, that for a number of reasons, I reckon the 2021 growing year is running about a month late.
Let's do some comparisons. Above are my sprouts, only put in the ground a couple of weeks ago. My 2020 'getting the greens in the ground' blog was early June. And that particular blog talked about cabbage butterflies everywhere, a pest that I must admit I haven't really noticed yet. In fact the product of cabbage whites, the green caterpillar was the star of my upbeat harvest laden mid August 2020 blog as they were also all over my brassicas. This year it has been the slug, profiting from the lack of summer sunshine that has hidden in the damp undergrowth and munched it's way through baby leaves to stunt the growth of many of my planted out seedlings.
My big success story in 2020 were the prolific cucumbers (both outside and in the greenhouse) which supplied our family (and many of my neighbours) from June onwards. By my July 3rd blog last year I was being overun by the things!
This year, the early summer has been much cooler so not only have I only just started to harvest fruit, the plants themselves are much smaller and therefore not likely to produce as many cucumbers anyway, especially the outdoor ones which as I look at them today have just one cucumber between them! Mind you, there could be an additional reason for that which I will come to at the end of this 5 minute read!
In the ground my overwintered onions were very disappointing this year. I harvested some great sized bulbs in June last year. This year, in July I cleared a much smaller selection of bolting onions such that I'm probably only going to have a couple of month's worth in storage - usually I can get to Christmas before I run out. I've also been later putting leeks in...and because I haven't been able to clear ground quick enough (a combination of undiggable soil and bindweed) I've put my 2021 leeks in raised beds. That means they will dry out more quickly so may also bolt like their 2021 onion cousins if I'm not on it with my watering!
And then there's the potatoes which back in July 2020 had their own dedicated blog post.
12 months on, yes I'm harvesting spuds but in a totally different way to last year. I tried growing potatoes in small potato bags last year and although the yield was poor (because the bags were small) the quality was good. So this year, to supplement the two beds of potatoes in the ground that I always do, I invested in some bigger potato bags. The results have been significant. The 'earlies' planted at the allotment are (bar two rows) still in the ground! They have been pretty slow growing and because of the plentiful rain, the slugs are helping themselves to a lot of the potatoes in the ground before I even see them. The maincrop spuds in a second bed have been a disaster. Pathetic spindly growth with quite a few not even showing. up through the soil. I've never really had such a poor performance with potatoes, they are usually pretty reliable even amongst the bindweed. But this year something is definitely up. However, I have found evidence of a mole in one of the rows...
Onto the potato bags - they have been a much happier story...and I have had a steady stream of new (and broadly unblemished) potatoes since early July. In fact, the fact that the maincrop look to have failed could be completely compensated by the potato bag yield which still have 4 bags to empty and are to be followed by a second succession sowing of Charlotte (new potato) which should be good to harvest for Christmas. I've never done a summer sowing before so I'll keep you posted on how they fare in the frosts!.
Other comparisons? Here's a quick summary
Sweetcorn - last year was a bad year so anything this year was likely to be an improvement, and so it has proved with the first crop of cobs eaten this week
Lettuce/Salads - just as the sweetcorn , a rubbish year last year so again, the fact that we've had some lettuce at all this year is an improvement.
Carrots - not growing as strongly as last year in the allotment but I do have more growing in the garden this year and some of them are ready now.
Tomatoes - I've not grown them in the greenhouse this year, (I'm trying aubergines instead) so I've only got the cherry tomatoes in hanging baskets to look forward to ans they're nowhere near ready yet!.
French/Dwarf beans - I was picking from late June last year, this year they started from around late July (so yep, a month behind!)
Runner beans - Again around a month behind, plus this year I'm growing a wigwam in a big (40cm) pot rather than in the ground...so I have to water heavily every night!
Courgettes - look, we're talking about courgettes here. If you can get them established, you'll be good for weeks whatever the weather...and this year we're already scouring the cook books and recipe sources for new things to do with them!
Squash - started slowly but a couple of decent butternuts coming through now.
Blackcurrants - seson just finished, again about a month behind last years crop.
The Sunflowers
Now, do you remember, earlier on I suspected another reason why the outdoor cucumbers were growing less vigourously this year. Well here you go...
Yes, right in the middle of my cucumber growbag you will find one of my sunflowers. Now I never meant to grow it there...I remember exactly what I did. I pot planted the sunflower seed and left it for around 3 weeks and nothing happened. So I reused the pot and (amongst other pots) sowed some cucumber seeds. And all together the pots sprouted seedlings...including the pot with the sunflower seed (which I now assumed to be cucumber seed) so when I planted them out (and I am going to claim that there are similarities between cucumber and sunflower seedlings before you have a go at me too much), I unwittingly entered the work sunflower competition by planting a sunflower in a grow bag with two other cucumber plants!
As you can see, I'm not going to win for height (there's nowhere for the tap root to go!) but at least I have an entry!
We had 4 seeds between us (as my daughter had two too) and whislt one seed planted directly into the allotment was devoured by slugs, a second one has survived but is struggling for height.
And the fourth one, we planted in a big pot in the garden...and it's doing pretty well. Here are a couple of current views...
So there you go.
I've written in the past that nature has a way of catching things up. If I look back on my blog at the end of August last year, even though we were ahead of where we are this year in comparison, we were about to have a 'reset' moment (remember the August 2020 winds?). So there's always something unpredictable around the corner every year. That said, worryingly, I do believe our climate is changing and the seasons are both moving and becoming more extreme, even if I am also quite happy to accept the argument from some people that it's always been this way!. Which camp are you in?
Until next time...
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