There's so much going on this time of year that my weekly updates are becoming a little less weekly. Sorry about that. Let me tell you why.
On the plot, all the planting has been done; it's now weeding, watering and harvesting in the main.
Weeding is a huge problem when you only visit the plot once a week. The amount of growth put on by 'plants growing in the wrong place' - Alan Titchmarsh's simple definition of a weed - can be quite spectacular at this time of year.
Apart from the bindweed (which, yes, I know I go on about!), you should be regularly hoeing around your veg, to keep the local rivals to the moisture and soil nutrients down. You can't hoe bindweed though as anything left in the soil grows staright back, so that needs a more backbreaking 'dig it out' strategy.
The real weeding problem I have, however. is with my netted brassicas. I net the plants as soon as they are planted out to keep flying predators off (especially cabbage white butterflies - more on them later) but in keeping the butterflies out, you keep the weeds in. The picture above shows just how much weed and how little cabbage can develop in the protection of the net...and just for good measure there was a 'cabbage white' trying to get in when I took the picture, waiting for the moment when I finally lift the netting to get the hoe out.
You will see cabbage whites flying around all over the place this time of year looking for any brassica (cabbages, kale, sprouts, broccoli etc.) where they quckly lay their eggs. Days later, you'll find an army of small green caterpillars stripping the life out of anything green they see.
And this is what the culprit looks like,
So you need to keep them out and if they do get in (as they inevitably do) squash the offending caterpillars between your fingers as soon as you see the stripped leaf evidence that they are around. It's organic and necessary, Emily (my daughter who won't like that previous sentence!)
That said, so far I have one netted bed of sprouts and red cabbage looking pretty perfect and caterpillar free. It won't last I know, but at least it's a healthy start to build on.
We covered potatoes last week - I've just got the maincrop left now - but that's a good five rows of plants still to harvest. What I haven't talked much about is the bed next to them which houses parsnips, tomatoes, sweetcorn and squash.
The parsnips seedlings were woeful this year and hardly took at all so I just have one row -hopefully at least enough for Christmas day if nothing else! The tomato plants are just a couple of rows of overflow plants which will give me some extra fruits as I really do hate wasting any plants that I do manage to raise into seedlings.
Then there's the sweetcorn - again there's been heavy casualties through the season so far with more than half the plants lost to mice in the greenhouse or peacocks on the plot. I do have a couple of rows that have survived though, so hopefully 3 or 4 meals worth. And finally the squash and courgettes which, after taking more weeks that usual to establish, have finally, in the hot weather of the last week, taken off.
Back in the garden, things are doing even better - especially cucumbers. Year on year you grow similar things in the same way, and then one year, with no obvious reason, you get a really good result. This year, for me, it's cucumbers grown in a gro-bag. Even outside they are prolific and well over a foot long in some cases. I honestly don't know why!
I'm now also picking runner beans coming into season with perfect timing just as the green beans look like their first flush has finished. (You'd think I knew what I was doing!) I'm still watering the green beans to see if I can coax a second coming but to be honest they've given us a month's worth of crop and the runners look pretty heavily laden anyway, so perhaps it won't matter.
The greenhouse is also producing now with (more) cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and chillies all looking good. Apparently you should never grow tomatoes in close proximity to cucumbers, so that's another reason why my cucumber success is so puzzling.
Back outside, the netted lettuce is surviving the regular attacks from the house sparrows - I'm trying both gro-bag and hanging basket methods and I think the baskets are winning!
And there's also a steady crop of carrots and beetroot coming through not to mention a couple of courgette plants cropping too ,so all in all I'd call this a good year so far.
You are never too far away from your next disaster though. Whilst the garden is benefitting from every day watering, I can't say the same thing for the plot where I've already lost a couple of squash plants fried in the midday sun of this incredibly hot period - where are the promised thunderstorms when you need them eh?
Oh well, at least we can enjoy the weather.
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