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Wednesday 01 August 2012
Better Cauliflower Plants
Wednesday wasn’t a great start to August. It was cloudy and although we only managed a few light showers, the dark heavy clouds contained a threat of a real downpour all day. It was a little milder than the last few days with the temperature managing to just make it to 20°C.
Last year I ordered my winter brassicas from a couple of well known seed companies. These arrived early last August and I wasn’t at all impressed by the quality of plants supplied.
Above are the plants I received last August which I transplanted into modules before finally moving them into the allotment.
I decided that this year I would try to raise my own plants and see if I could do any better. It’s certainly been difficult going with the very wet weather, the slugs and the vagaries of knowing the best brand of seed compost to use. I’ve been using New Horizon peat free multi-purpose this year for both sowing the seeds and later transplanting into modules. I’ve been feeding every time I’ve watered with liquid Miracle-Gro to supplement the nutrient level of the compost. This was a tip from the TV programme Beechgrove Garden from their compost trials.
My seedlings have grown well and are ready for transplanting into the plot once the bed is finally prepared. This variety is Aalsmeer sown on 17 June and transplanted into modules on 26 June. They should be providing us with cauliflowers sometime between May and June next year.
Thursday 02 August 2012
Showered Off
Thursday was a big improvement on yesterday, at least we saw some sunshine. The day was spoilt by a couple of very heavy showers, one late afternoon and another late into the evening.
Now when earlier I say spoilt that’s not necessarily true in all cases. On the plot in the afternoon I was cultivating the bed for our young winter brassicas. This bed had been sown with green manure earlier in the year which had been cut down. The bed had been dug and prepared for our winter brassicas. The rain in early July however had compacted the soil into the consistency of concrete and there was no way we would be able to plant into soil in this condition.
So the cultivator was back in business to turn over the ground. It’s been a couple of weeks since we had any appreciable rain and besides being like concrete the ground was surprising dry. So in some ways the couple of heavy showers might do the bed some good. Just got finished as the first heavy shower of the day arrived to curtail any more allotmenting for the day. All we have to do now is get our young plants into the ground.
Just a note to say that the long grass visible on the unkempt allotment in the background is not ours and is awaiting new plotters to take it on.
Friday 03 August 2012
Double Experiment
It was dry all day on Friday. The bright sunny start didn’t last and it soon clouded over but it was a mild day with very little breeze.
We made the most of the fine weather to get our winter brassicas planted out on the plot. Besides experimenting on growing our own plants from seed this year we’ve decided to try planting through weed suppressant membrane to cut down on weeding and give the plants less growing competition. Part one of the experiment to grow some better plants than the ones we bought last year has gone well. Our experiment to use weed suppressant membrane to reduce weeding around our carrots seems to have gone well although we’ve still to harvest some carrots. The carrot tops look good though. So part two of the brassica experiment is underway.
As these plants will be in the ground through until spring next year there is a tendency for weeds to take over through the winter months when we generally make less visits to the plot. Hopefully this method will keep the weeding required down to a minimum.
This is how last years bed looked at the beginning of May this year. Most plants had seeded rather than produce any useful crops and they were inundated with weeds.
I’m looking to be able to re-use the membrane for several years to make the cost of using it more acceptable. Should it prove impossible to make use of this material over several years then I guess it will be back to conventional weeding.
Saturday 04 August 2012
Potato Damage - Wireworm Perhaps?
Saturday was a lovely summer’s day, a bit of a rarity this year. Some good sunny spells and the temperature rose into the mid twenties.
On the plot I decided to lift some more potatoes probably not the best choice of job on a warm summer’s afternoon. The potatoes were in one of last year’s old strawberry beds and the predominant variety planted was Juliette with a few Winston’s planted to completely fill up the bed. I lifted the Juliette’s first and these had a decent crop of small to medium size tubers which were virtually free of any pest damage with no rotting from the wet weather. I was pleased with this crop which weighed in at 17.2kg or 37½ lbs.
There were just five roots of Winston to lift. These were all medium to very large potatoes but nearly all the potatoes had a few small holes in them, damage that I suspect was caused by wireworm. Below is a close up shot of the holes in the Winston potatoes.
What ever it was that caused this damage loved our Winston potatoes but left Juliette alone even though they were growing alongside each other in this bed. The vast majority of the Winston’s will be fine to use as even with the damaged parts of the tuber removed it will still leave plenty of useable potato. Well that’s what I’m hoping! They will of course have to be used first as damaged potatoes don’t store well.
Sunday 05 August 2012
You Just Can’t Tell
By Sunday lunch time I thought I had today’s blog post sorted out. It’s a while since we had any Long Tailed Tits visiting the garden but over the last couple of day’s they’ve made brief visits to our fat balls. Doesn’t that sound awful. Anyhow here are a couple of pictures I managed to get.
At one stage we had eight or nine feeding and squabbling over the fat balls but it’s a bit difficult to get a picture in focus of them all feeding . Up to the middle of the afternoon the weather had been fine, mild again but with a bit more cloud that yesterday but not too bad at all. Then in the middle of the afternoon it changed dramatically. Thunder, lighting, hail and torrential rain arrived.
The rain came at a torrential rate for a few minutes, measuring at 138mm/hour or looked at another way all August’s rainfall in just 20 minutes. Fortunately it didn’t last too long! In the end we finished up with 24.4mm moving Sunday into 5th place in the wettest day records.
|
|
Date |
Rainfall (mm) |
|
1 |
06- |
39.2 |
|
2 |
22- |
35.1 |
|
3 |
14- |
33.4 |
|
4 |
20- |
26.2 |
|
5 |
05- |
24.4 |
|
6 |
03- |
22.8 |
|
7 |
26- |
22.7 |
|
8 |
26- |
21.6 |
|
9 |
01- |
19.9 |
|
10 |
08- |
19.1 |
Did I mention that the soil was drying out a little on the plot?