Slim Pickings

Everything is coming along nicely down at the patch, with only some windblown Potato haulms and 'pigeon pecked' Kale plants as a blot on our landscape. All information that I have checked seems to indicate that the Potatoes will not be a problem and the Kale plants were just leftovers we stuck in the area sown with Red Clover.

We have lifted some of the Orla and Cara spuds out of curiosity. Boiled with butter, they were very tasty... although not as good as the Charlottes we have lifted from our garden.

We have also had some of the last large Beetroot thinnings and these were really good. Heather wants to lift the complete half-row for pickling, but I feel we should wait another week. So we will !

Pigeon Attack !

Our Red Cabbage had been growing up nicely until yesterday. Pigeons had attacked the young plants and taken out about a third of them. Dave had some spare plants (some 'pointy' ones and some 'round' ones) and we planted these alongside the ravaged 'Red Drumhead'. Heather dashed down to Homebase and came back with some netting and we rigged up some protection using hazel poles. The Savoys had not been so seriously attacked, so as an interim measure the plants were covered with the tops of 2 litre water bottles and we will assemble a netting cover next week.

The last bit of the plot was dug over and raked to a fine tilth. We planted two rows of Celeriac 'Brilliant' and two rows of Leek 'Musselburgh'. Some remaining Celeriac was planted at the end of the patch sown with Red Clover.

We have utilised the little patch in front of the peas and beans by constructing a hazel wigwam and have planted a couple of Butternut Squash 'Avalon F1 Hybrid' which we hope to train up and over the structure.

For good measure, we planted another couple of the Squash in the 'clover patch'. Finally, some Sweet Peas were planted in amongst the Borlotti Beans and up the wigwam to grow in amongst the Squash.

That's it !

All of the Summer season sowings and plantings have been done, so we only need to pick and maintain until October when the Shallots and Garlic gets planted.