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A Gardener’s Weather Diary - August week 1
Monday, 01 August 2011
When the bough breaks - it means too many plums
It was a warm, cloudy, clammy and dry day. It was the sort of day where a thunderstorm might be expected at any time. There was just a hint of dampness in the air mid afternoon but it didn’t amount to anything so our dry spell goes on.
On the plot our plums or gages (Oullins Gage), there seems to be doubt over the description, are ripe and ready for picking.
However, another one of our plum trees, Marjorie’s Seedling, has suffered severely from the weight of plums it is carrying and the main leader of the tree has broken. The tree is 15 years old so the branch that broke was fairly substantial.
The break is above head height and difficult to reach. We’re now going to have to decide on the best course of action to take. In the sort term I might be able to prop the collapsed branches to lift the unripe fruit off the grass to allow the fruit to ripen. Longer term I think the branch will need to be cut cleaning just below the break.
Any body following Kelli’s blog will be on the ball now and know everything there is to know about why cucumbers taste bitter. I’d not thought about it before just picked them and ate them.
But all that’s changed now. All sorts of things need to be considered, is it the right shape, is it too old or too young, have they had the right amount of water and nutrition, did the male flowers fall off? Well if a cucumber should be straight this one’s failed the test at the first hurdle, it’s been water rather spasmodically as we’ve had to do so much watering, as for its age we’ve used up our last cucumber so this one’s been picked and we want to use it in sandwiches rather than pickle it. All I’ll say it’s a bit prickly and it hasn’t grown one of those skin tight plastic skins like the supermarket ones. Perhaps our Burpless Tasty Green is just an unfussy outdoor cucumber.
Saturday, 06 August 2011
Dull and dry
It was a cloudy day with just a few spits and spots of rain.
Our cauliflower plants, Jerome, arrived from Marshalls today. To be honest they aren’t the best mail order plants I've ever received. The seedlings are leggy and I think that they have been kept in their small modules for too long. I’ve potted them up so that they can receive some TLC before planting them out in the plot.
My immediate problems are to keep them slug free and to dig over the bed where they are to be transplanted down on the plot.
I’m still not convinced that the copper impregnated matting is providing a deterrent to slugs and snails. I found this snail tucking into my young Pak Choi seedlings this morning.
This is a selection of the slugs and snails munching their way through my French Bean plants on Friday morning.
Unfortunately the only thing controlling them at the moment appears to be slug pellets. My two trays with copper tape around the edges do seem to be working at the moment and protecting my young lettuce plants.
Sunday, 07 August 2011
Our Nectarines are Ripening
Another cloudy disappointing day for August. We had a few sunny spells and occasional showers throughout a blustery day. After a decent start August is going the way of the rest of the summer, a bit of a let down.
Despite the weather our nectarines look like they might be starting to ripen. The skins still appear more like a peach but they are certainly starting to take on a rosy appearance.
It’s certainly gone a long way to reducing the height of our plum tree’ it’s just a bit drastic. At least I wont need a ladder to harvest these plums if they do ripen.
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Tuesday, 02 August 2011
Early potato harvest
The spell of cloudy, muggy and warm weather continued today. We managed a little more sunshine today and it felt hot when the sun did come out.
Normally at this time of year our potatoes have lots of healthy green tops and we are waiting for the signs of the dreaded blight to affect the crops. That’s not going to happen this year as the vast majority of our potato foliage has already died back. I lifted part of our crop of Charlotte potatoes and the whole of our crop of Lady Christl. These happily have produced reasonable crops much to my surprise given the weak looking tops and the unusually early browning of the haulms.
Lady Christl
Charlotte
Wednesday, 03 August 2011
Thunderstorms
The spell of cloudy, muggy and warm weather continued again today. The thunderstorms started early afternoon and continued into the evening. I know some places in Leeds had several torrential downpours in the afternoon as I was out in them. Back home, no such luck, just a millimetre or so of rain all afternoon.
August has got off to a very warm start compared to the temperatures for most of July. A few days with temperatures in the mid twenties is unusual for us this year.
Thursday, 04 August 2011
Slug protection update
Another day of heavy showers in and around West Yorkshire causing flash flooding in places as reported on local television news. As usual we had a couple of short lived showers amounting to 1.6mm. After a mostly dull day the clouds disappeared to give a lovely sunny evening.
Last week I blogged about setting up my slug protection barrier using copper impregnated matting. After a week the trial has turned out to be inconclusive which is my fault. As you can see from these French Beans (Sungold) there is definitely a slug or snail munching through my seedlings during the night. It seems to have taken a liking to Sungold as the tray of Tendergreen beans alongside are so far untouched.
I’ve inspected all around the outer trays for signs of the pests including taking the cells out of the tray to inspect all around the edges and underneath. As you can see in the shot below I’ve even removed the plants from the cell to see if anything was lurking in the bottom of the cell. Nothing!
These Tendergreen French Beans alongside are fine at the moment. I’ve inspected late in the evening just before dark to see if I could find an early slug but not a trace.
I was checking some cell modules out in a separate water tray alongside these beans when I found one slug underneath a tray of germinating spring cabbage seeds.
Is this the culprit or will there be more like this lurking somewhere I’ve forgotten to inspect? As the cold frame is secure against hedgehogs with netting over the top to stop birds getting in I’ve resorted to using a few slug pellets before all my seedlings are devoured. I’m not particularly happy at having to resort to this but there again I’m not too happy about spending time and money to raise slug food.
I think the problem might be that the slugs got into the French Bean cells whilst the trays were in the greenhouse before the matting arrived. I’d like to think that’s the reason for my problem at the moment.
Not wanting to tempt fate too much my young lettuce plants are managing to avoid attack and our Sweet William seedlings are starting to recover from their slug and snail attack.
Friday, 05 August 2011
Plum glut
Friday was a very pleasant summer’s day; some long sunny periods but not too hot to allow some gardening.
On the plot we spent the afternoon harvesting. There seems little point looking after all these crops if you don’t harvest them when they’re ready. So it was a case of choosing harvesting rather than preparing the ground for the winter brassicas that Marshall’s Seeds informed me by email had been dispatched. I did set the sprinkler in action to water the ground where the cabbages and cauliflowers are going to be planted. It’s a case of how to best prepare concrete for planting. Hopefully a good watering will at least give me a chance to get the ground cultivated.
Our Oullin’s Gage has produced a fantastic crop this year. It was a case of harvesting as many ripe plums as we could reach. We very quickly had 20 kg of fruit picked.
In the greenhouse our peppers (Jimmy Nardello’s) are growing well and we have some decent sized fruits although I think it will be some time before they begin to turn red.
