Tuesday 08 July 2014
It Started off so Well
Tuesday got off to a beautiful sunny start. It was just the sort of morning for having a stroll around the garden taking a few pictures.
The plan for the afternoon was to plant some winter brassicas on the allotment. By the time we got down to the plot in the early afternoon some dark clouds were brewing out in the east over the motorway.
I wasn’t too concerned at first as most of our weather comes in from the west and we’ve normally missed anything that looks to be out in the direction of these ominous looking clouds. After another half an hour or so it was clear to see that these clouds were heading in our direction and we were in for a downpour.
We’d started planting out some of our brassica plants and at first as the rain started gently we decided to carry on, just get wet but have everything planted. As the heavens opened we put our optimistic planting plan on hold and headed for the shed as the thunder rumbled overhead.
We decided to sit it out in the shed hoping for a break in the rain to get our planting finished. It didn’t really happen so in a lighter spell of rain we settled for finishing half of our planting and covering the calabrese and savoys with some temporary netting as pigeon protection.
More rain in the evening turned a day that had started off with so much promise into the wettest day of the year so far with the final rainfall total coming to 20.4mm. That’s on top of Monday’s 10.8mm bringing our monthly total up to a healthy 38.4mm. At least the plot won’t need watering for a while.
It makes Tuesday our 12th wettest day since 2009 but still a little way short of the record of 39.2mm on 12 July 2012.
Wednesday 09 July 2014
Blossom Ends Looking Good so Far -
Wednesday was a lovely summer’s day following on from yesterday’s thunderstorms.
Last year our crop of tomatoes growing in our home greenhouse were a complete disaster. Virtually all the tomatoes managed to finish up with blossom end rot. Fortunately as if to make up for this our tomatoes in the plot greenhouse produced a bumper crop.
This is how our tomatoes looked last year. It wasn’t as though we had to wait for them to turn red to know they weren’t going to be any good. Once they’ve got blossom end rot that’s really the end of the story.
So far this year’s tomatoes in the home greenhouse are looking okay and haven’t yet started to develop the tell tale signs.
Last year’s disaster has made me a little bit paranoid and I keep having a look to make sure the tomatoes are okay. Then there’s the irregular watering that’s supposed to cause blossom end rot. What’s regular and what’s irregular watering? Should I water or not? I haven’t really got a system. I don’t like to let them get too dry especially if the weather turns sunny as temperatures in the greenhouse are suddenly in the high twenties centigrade even with the door and windows wide open and the plants dry out very quickly. I’m going on gut instinct and hoping that this year we get some ripe tomatoes from our home greenhouse.
Home greenhouse tomatoes in July 2013
Home greenhouse tomatoes in July 2014
Thursday 10 July 2014
A Garden Centre, Nature Reserve and a White Cloud
Thursday was another lovely summer’s day with almost unbroken sunshine from dawn to dusk.
In the morning we had a trip to Wentworth Garden Centre. Only around half an hour away it was the first time we’d visited. It had an impressive display of plants for sale and was very busy. It has its own gardens which for a small charge you can explore.
After a look around the gardens we headed for the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s nature reserve at Potteric Carr. From previous visits we know that many of the birds test out the maximum zoom range of our cameras. One hide is suitably supplied with bird feeders to attract in the garden birds and on our previous visits this is a popular location for the squirrels looking for an easy meal. Thursday was no exception.
I’ve had my Sony DSC HX300 camera set so that only the optical zoom of the lens is used. Today I decided to let the zoom operate in its digital range too and see if any worthwhile shots could be obtained.
Obviously there is some deterioration in the quality of the shots in the digital zoom range. The camera in this mode can be used as a telescope to scan the reserve for birds and at least get a picture even if only for identification purposes once downloaded onto a computer.
And the White Cloud, well you wouldn’t expect us to come away from a garden centre well stocked with plants empty handed.
This fragrant climbing rose White Cloud will be a new addition to our border.
Friday 11 July 2014
Winter Brassicas Planted on the Warmest Day of the Year
Friday wasn’t as sunny as the last two days with much more light cloud about in the afternoon. It felt very muggy as the temperature reached 25.6°C to become the warmest day of the year taking over from 18 May’s 25.2°C.
We managed to finish off planting out our autumn and winter brassica plants. We’ve planted cauliflower Clapton, Savoy’s Wintessa and Resolution together with calabrese Green Magic to hopefully keep us supplied with greens through the autumn and winter.
I think this season’s planting is just about completed now apart from successional sowings of some salad vegetables. I might try a late sowing of french beans to crop into the beginning of autumn provided the weather doesn’t get too bad.
It’s mostly a case of harvesting for the next few weeks.
Saturday 12 July 2014
Didn’t See This in the Forecast
Saturday continued our spell of very warm weather which didn’t really seem to be forecast. It became our warmest day of the year as the temperature reached 27.4°C.
We’ve had three lovely sunny days in a row. Thursday was the sunniest of the days and Saturday the warmest. Late on into the evening on Saturday the fine spell came to an end with some rain which continued into the early hours of Sunday morning.
Temperature and sunshine record for Thursday 11 to Saturday 12 July 2014
Rainfall July 2014
Our rainfall total for the month has now reached 52.0mm already a little above what we might expect in the whole month.
Sunday 13 July 2014
Last of the Trio
After overnight rain Sunday took until lunchtime to brighten up to give us a bright and breezy afternoon.
Back in March I bought a trio of early brassicas from Marshalls seeds. These were cabbage Duncan, calabrese Marathon and cauliflower Mayflower. The cabbages and calabrese produced some good crops which we finished picking a few weeks ago. When the cauliflowers arrived on the 23 March 2014 they looked like this.
They didn’t look the best of specimens and the cabbages and calabrese looked much the same. All the plants were potted on and given some tlc in the greenhouse and the cabbages and calabrese responded well but the cauliflowers were another matter and didn’t seem to want to grow at all.
By the 05 May 2014 when the name suggests they should be “cauliflowering” the plants still hadn’t done much growing but we decided to plant them out on the plot and see what would happen to them.
I wasn’t sure if they would survive or become another meal for the slugs. Surprisingly they survived and after a settling in period started to grow away well. As you can see from the picture below by the 29 June 2014 they’d gone on to produce some excellent plants but up to that point no cauliflowers.
On Sunday we harvested our first cauliflower. I must admit I expected them to be ready before July but it’s a bonus as in May I wasn’t expecting them to grow let alone produce any crop.
The Marshalls plants certainly filled a gap producing some early summer brassicas well before the cabbages, calabrese and cauliflowers from my spring sowings. I might even give them a try again next spring.
Monday 14 July 2014
Are Tomatoes Really Worth the Effort?
Monday morning was lovely and sunny but after lunch we had lots more cloud about. By late afternoon it was that sort of cloud that makes you think its going to rain any minute but it never actually did.
Last week I blogged about our home greenhouse tomatoes and the fact that they were doing much better than last year. I shouldn’t have done it and as if by magic on our next visit to the allotment we realised that the tomatoes growing in our plot greenhouse are lined up for a disaster this year.
A rather casual glance and the plants don’t look too bad but when you look a little closer the green tomatoes have a problem. Look at the green tomatoes at the top of the plant on the right of the picture. First reaction is that the fruits have developed blossom end rot.
Then after actually inspecting the plants more closely I’m not so sure. This isn’t blossom end rot.
As if this isn’t bad enough the whole plant is showing signs of distress. The plants have certainly stopped growing and the leaves at the top of the plant are curling inwards and look very fern like whilst the older leaves are turning yellow rather prematurely.
The leaves look very similar to the fern like appearance cause by hormonal weedkillers which we’ve had problems with in the past. All the tomatoes are planted in large size Levington growbags with three plants to each bag. I’m not entirely convinced that the problem isn’t something to do with the growing medium.
Now we’re into environmentally friendly peat free composts it seems that anything can end up in the compost you buy. I’ve yet to find a peat free compost that gives consistently good results but I suppose that’s another story.
Like many gardeners these days when I find a problem it’s time to have a look on the Internet to see if there are any solution out there. The nearest disease I’ve found so far is tobacco mosaic virus but how the plants have actually got this I’ve no idea. If my hunch is correct then it seems most likely that all the plants will be infected and will need to be destroyed.
Now I’m not going to compost these diseased plants and the Local Authority allotment rules prevent me from burning the plants so they’re going to go in a large bag and finish up in the green waste bin that the council will collect compost and add to new bags of peat free compost and so the cycle goes on.
Like I said at the beginning of this post I don’t think tomatoes are worth the effort as a successful crop has probably got nothing to do with effort nowadays but whether or not you are lucky enough to get a batch of decent compost to grow the plants in.