12th June: Tragedy at the beginning of the week with the discovery that bean seed fly had decimated 90% of our first climbing bean sowing. Slow germination indicated a problem and when we dug up some of the beans there was a maggoty surprise waiting. We’ve resown the entire batch in pots to plant out when they’re strong enough to withstand the grub. Organic methods of control are pretty lacking – cultivation to expose the critters to birds and the elements seem to be the best option.
Seems like there’s something for everyone on the pest front. Our purple top milan turnips are suffering from flea beetle and our chard is under attack by pigeons – we may have to net them pretty soon.
On a more positive note we have planted out a few hundred squash plants (to be harvested in September/October), and the courgettes are making a comeback after a shaky start outside – our windy site gave them a bit of a shock to the system.
After some mammoth Mypex rolling sessions and more steel bending we’ve now given our summer and many winter brassicas new homes. Kale (Red Russian, Curly and Cavolo Nero) and Brussels Sprouts went out at 45cm spacings and will stay put until mid-winter.
The tomatoes are starting to fruit nicely and we are pinching out sideshoots almost every day now. The interplanted basil is also getting some pinching out treatment – nipping the tips encourages them to bush more which will give a better harvest.
The shallots seem to be recovering after the wireworm attack, so the nematodes must be working. And our lettuce outdoors is coming good – we’ve just started to harvest from it. So it’s not all bad.
- A bean seed that has suffered the effects of the dreaded bean seed fly.
- Squashes, sown in May now on their way out to the great outdoors.
- Eva and Bart putting in steel hoops to roll netting over. We’ve got to protect our brassicas from the pesky pigeons, and the cabbage white butterfly.
- The effects of flea beetle on our purple top milan turnips. The effects too of unwitting over sowing – they’re far too close together!
- First cauli heads are appearing – we’ve been giving them lots of water to try and make sure they reach a respectable size.
- An ingenious contraption for rolling out drip pipe to be laid under the Mypex. We had to lay the Mypex first, weight it, then blowtorch holes for the plants. The last stage was laying the drip pipes – if we’d done that first we’d risk a lot of expensive, melted plastic on our hands!
- Christmas Brussels Sprouts – seeds sown in March, here we are in mid-June and they have moved home from pot to field.
