Entries from June 2007 ↓

You remember that I netted the sprouts last week? Well they have come on leaps and bounds now that the greedy birds cant get to them.

I am quite impressed with them – despite having to spend ?10 on the hard netting. I know it will come in handy for next year, but it is still ?10 that could have been spent on plants and the like.

Oh well, at least the sprouts will be good for me and will make a tasty addition to winter meals.

The good thing about spinach is that the slugs don’t seem to eat it? This means there is more for me to eat.

I am going back up to water later and to cut some for a spinach and ricotta ‘pie’ I am fond of. It only takes 15 minutes to make and is really tasty when I have put in a few of my secret ingredients.

If I remember, I will put the recipe up here later. 🙂

Well, for once we are winning against the slug menace. 😉 The runner beans have been able to grow a little taller, though I fear it will be a long battle with the little blighters.

The one that I thought could survive as it had a little green shoot left in the centre – after slug munching – has not done a thing, so we are one down to the slugs this week, boo hiss!

They need to get a little taller and I will start to wind them round the stakes. (click to enlarge the photo)

At last, the dwarf beans have started to arrive. I was worried that the slugs had got them as they have taken ages to poke their heads through the soil and there have been a lot of slug trails across where they are.

Now I have to protect them from all comers until they are large enough to fend for themselves.

The cabbages seem to be doing very well under the netting. I have to admit to not being so keen this year with watering every night. I don’t have the time to be up there every five minutes and have left them to their own devices for a couple of days before watering.

Still my moist soil seems to do the trick and they are growing nicely as you can see. I’m not going to take the netting off just yet. I prefer to let them get a little more established before that.

Here you can see them just after watering (click on the picture to enlarge).

The broad beans are still OK and are now growing upright again after the winds 10 days ago.

The real problem is the black fly for me. Only two plots away are a patch of beans that have no black fly. I seem to be unlucky this year, picking up all the bugs going. Now I have to go back later today and clean them up.

These are the late onions I put in, in April. They are doing rather well all things considered this year.

I also checked on the parsnips and they too are doing their level best to grow:

I planted some marigolds today. I put these in-between the cabbages to reduce the possibility of cabbage fly.

I also put the cucumbers out. They look so small at the moment. I’m so excited, I’ve never grown them before and they look so sweet when they are small. I’m hoping for a bumper crop.

I also did some checking of growth while at the allotment today.

It has been a hard week up there, what with the corn and now the runner beans.

I’m sure I pelleted for slugs, but I may not have had time. It could also have been the rain that washed them away. I don’t get time to go up the allotment every night as I would like to water and check on things.

I expect the slugs waited until the rain stopped and then immediately popped out for a slap up meal on my allotment. I lost a complete wigwam of runner beans (above). Before the slugs they looked like this:

putting in runner beans

Luckily the other two wigwams were OK. Though I have now pelleted and salted a few of the fat greedy slugs lazing in the sun. 🙁

I planted out some leeks today. I had grown these in a tray and had planted far too many as usual – though with the weather playing up this year, it is good to have some in reserve.

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Here you can see that I have given them plenty of room, not that they need it of course – they really need deep soil. Ideally space them about 6″ apart. Also you will note that you are not supposed to close the hole up around the leek. This is so that it has room to grow without having to push away the soil. As I said in the video, birds don’t like them so wont pull them out and slugs are not partial either – good!

Good soil is key to growing leeks as they need nutrient rich, well-drained soil (mmm! sounds familiar) with a pH between 6 & 7. They like a crumbly loam – hence the roto-vating. But, they do OK in almost any soil as long as you aerated it well.