Monday, July 02, 2007
Ho hum, the gardening depression continues. With the weather still wet and unseasonably cold (between 15 and 20 c) the summer veg are really suffering. I don't think I will get any tomatoes this year which is a heavy blow.
I spent a busy few hours in the lot on Saturday morning, giving myself a huge weeping blister on my thumb in the process. I massively weeded, filling an entire wheelbarrow about 2 feet high with weeds. Not to count that I hoed a lot of ground and left the weeds to rot on the ground. So yes there were quite a lot of weeds to contend with.
Next, I dug over a patch that was still left vacant, but I decided to leave down the tarpaulin that is smothering some weeds because they are pretty tough ones and I think it would be better to let them really die off. I will use that patch in a few weeks' time to start off some winter greens and cabbages.
So in the dug patch I made a last ditch effort at sowing: two types of carrot, beetroot, basil, parsley, parsnips, radish and spinach. It rained a little on the weekend so hopefully the seeds will get off to a decent start. I also sowed more carrot and onion seeds in some patchy bit between the existing root veg.
27 August - These sowings are doing well, the first spinach and radish I have managed to get! And the carrots even have come up. The basil is feeble, maybe it will do something but the parsley is off to a good start. So I am ever so pleased about that!
The parsnips are doing marvellously, as are the first beets. I will let them get a little bigger though.
I weeded the lettuce patch, dug out some bolted stems and planted in its place (on black plastic) some of my broccoli that I have grown from seed. It is doing reasonably well. I thinned out some lettuce seedlings too and resowed butterhead lettuce seeds and rocket. Thinned out the fennel too but ran out of time to do all of it. That will be one of next week's jobs.
Will also need to dig up the spuds soon, but I fear that the harvest will be very mediocre. Probably no maincrop but it will keep us in potatoes througout the summer.
The beans are doing quite well but the peas are just a disaster, I don't know whether to leave them or just cut them down. Sunflowers too are shooting up, if they flower they will be magnificent (and we'll have lots of seeds for next year and for feeding wild birds during the winter).
There is one raspberry on the bush, ha ha and my gooseberries have disappeared (birds I guess but there were only about 8 of them so I am not too upset). Plenty of flowers on the strawbs though, if we get some sun it might be promising.
27 August - All those promising strawberries rotted thru the continuous rain but the raspberries despite their youth are given a few fruit. The berries never make it off the plot though ;-)
Harvest: a handful of green beans, the first ones, 3 courgettes, one onion (just to see how they are doing, they seem healthy is that one is anything to go by), a lettuce and some rocket.
I will try and take some photos soon so everyone can see the extent of the disaster. Perhaps the autumn and winter crops will do better...
I spent a busy few hours in the lot on Saturday morning, giving myself a huge weeping blister on my thumb in the process. I massively weeded, filling an entire wheelbarrow about 2 feet high with weeds. Not to count that I hoed a lot of ground and left the weeds to rot on the ground. So yes there were quite a lot of weeds to contend with.
Next, I dug over a patch that was still left vacant, but I decided to leave down the tarpaulin that is smothering some weeds because they are pretty tough ones and I think it would be better to let them really die off. I will use that patch in a few weeks' time to start off some winter greens and cabbages.
So in the dug patch I made a last ditch effort at sowing: two types of carrot, beetroot, basil, parsley, parsnips, radish and spinach. It rained a little on the weekend so hopefully the seeds will get off to a decent start. I also sowed more carrot and onion seeds in some patchy bit between the existing root veg.
The parsnips are doing marvellously, as are the first beets. I will let them get a little bigger though.
I weeded the lettuce patch, dug out some bolted stems and planted in its place (on black plastic) some of my broccoli that I have grown from seed. It is doing reasonably well. I thinned out some lettuce seedlings too and resowed butterhead lettuce seeds and rocket. Thinned out the fennel too but ran out of time to do all of it. That will be one of next week's jobs.
Will also need to dig up the spuds soon, but I fear that the harvest will be very mediocre. Probably no maincrop but it will keep us in potatoes througout the summer.
The beans are doing quite well but the peas are just a disaster, I don't know whether to leave them or just cut them down. Sunflowers too are shooting up, if they flower they will be magnificent (and we'll have lots of seeds for next year and for feeding wild birds during the winter).
There is one raspberry on the bush, ha ha and my gooseberries have disappeared (birds I guess but there were only about 8 of them so I am not too upset). Plenty of flowers on the strawbs though, if we get some sun it might be promising.
Harvest: a handful of green beans, the first ones, 3 courgettes, one onion (just to see how they are doing, they seem healthy is that one is anything to go by), a lettuce and some rocket.
I will try and take some photos soon so everyone can see the extent of the disaster. Perhaps the autumn and winter crops will do better...
Labels: beans, courgette, digging, harvest, lettuce, summer, weeds
# posted by antipodesgirl @ 10:33 AM 
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