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Thursday 20 May 2010

Some good and some bad news

Since the last blog entry, I’ve had a week away and come back to some good and some bad news.

Good that the SFG grows well, the lettuce (green and red) are almost ready for cutting individual leaves (cut and come again!) 


and the Broad Beans are setting.


Bad in that the French Beans have been killed by frost!


Just goes to show that some plants are more susceptible to the cold than others, just like people! As it happens, I do have a few more plants coming along and will replace these soon.

The other slight problem is that the rocket is flowering and will go to seed soon, and the flea beetles continue to think I’m growing it for them!


To stop the plants going to seed I have pinched out the flowering parts.


And to try to control the flea beetle, organically, I’ve sprayed with a dishwashing detergent solution.


I also sprayed this on the radish as the beetle is attaching there too. Another way to prevent this is to keep the plants covered from germination; it would also help keep the carrot fly at bay.

It looks as though both slug controls are working; the gravel around the lettuce and the coffee around the carrots both seem good but it is dry and I’ll need to keep vigilant if it rains.

Ongoing work is to keep weeding (I do this by hand as it’s such a small patch) and watering when it’s dry, to help swell the beans and generally promote growth. Do this in the evening to avoid excessive evaporation.

Whatever you’re growing, now is the exciting time when you can anticipate eating the results. Enjoy!

Friday 7 May 2010

With a potato in square 9 planting the SFG is complete

It’s still cool in the wind and at night but the patch is doing well. I’ve not had a lot of success ‘chitting’ the pink fir apple potato. However, as you can see below, there are little sprouts, so I’ve “elected” to plant it today!


First I dug a hole about 200mm deep and put a little compost in the bottom. Next, I put the potato onto the compost taking care not to damage the ‘chits’.


I covered it with some more compost before filling the hole and making a mound over the top.


This effectively means that the potato is deeper which should increase the number of tubers. I’ll ‘earth it up’ (pull more earth up on top) when the shoots show through.

The whole SFG is looking quite healthy.


Lettuce, red and green growing well and the beetroot in the centre established, with radish beside it showing good germination.

The carrots in the bottom right corner (see close-up below) have germinated but are still small; the brown stuff around them is spent coffee.


In the next photo you can see that the rocket in the bottom-middle square has grown, but a careful investigation shows that the leaves have little round holes in them. This is evidence of attack by the flea beetle and the best organic way of getting rid of them is to spray with soapy water and cover the plants with fleece. This could also attack the radish and as carrot fly could get at the carrots I may cover all three with some fleece.


As for the onions, the photo below seems to show that the onions on the left, planted from seed, are doing better than those on the right, grown from sets. We’ll see. The garlic in the centre looks okay but has split into several growing spears.


Finally, it’s good to see the blossom on the broad beans in the top left corner of the SFG although the saw-tooth edges to the leaves indicates that they are being eaten by another beetle; more soapy water needed! When grown commercially fields of broad beans give a lovely perfume, if you’re out walking you might notice this heady aroma.


How’s your patch?