The Beauty of Nature

Cauliflower is a cool-season vegetable and is more difficult to grow than other members of the cabbage family, so I am hoping that my not so good season so far will come good for this.

You should space plants 18 to 24 inches apart. The main problem they face is the any extreme changes in the weather like cold, heat, drought can stunt development of the edible portion. Cauliflower needs an ample supply of soil moisture to grow. You can also give it some nitrogen fertilizer when the plants are half grown, but I try to be organic as much as possible.

When the head begins to form it is ready to what they call ‘blanch’. You have to tie the outer leaves together over the centre of the plant to protect the head from sunburn and to keep it from turning green and developing an off-flavour.

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What to watch out for? Well, cabbage worms and black rot are the worst. Also if growth is interrupted, the heads may not develop or may develop poorly.

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. 🙁