HARVEST

    It is now the end of June and we have tipped over into now moving towards autumn (summer soltice was the 22nd June the days are starting to get shorter!). Harvest in the garden is well underway. Lots of new potatoes, some beetroot, some peas, some carrots, some lettuce, some radish and the promise of plenty to come. I have sowed some winter cabbage seed (Hope and Gorly of Enkhuisen) with fingers crossed for plants to put out later in the summer for the winter. Of course the usual tasks of weeding and mowing grass!

Bush courgette Verde Di Milano

Garlic crop Violet

   Every had that feeling that you spoke too soon? Well that has happend this week. Everything in the garden has been looking good. So what happens? The weather. A couple of hot and sultry days meant more thunder and lightning with heavy rain. Late night/early morning 26/27th June 2020 the heavens opened! Very heavy rain with lots of thunder, wind and a delightful light show of lightning. The result. Damaged plants. Undoubtedly they will recover but it is very sad to see lovely plants shredded and broken.

Rain and sun, sun and rain

       The weather continues to be "grand growing weather". Its warm and wet and the vegies are loving it. There are pumpkins on the Giant Pacific pumpking plants and squash on some of the squas plants. Continue to dig up AGATA potatoes and the colorado beetle are becoming more prevalent despite lots of squishing of beetles and larvae. Fortunately the potatoes are pretty much done with growing but still it would be nice to give them a little longer. Courgette have started to appear. This variety which is a bush type I have never grown before. It will be interesting to see how "bush" courgettes work out compared to the usual ones. I have also sown a couple of "round" courgette seeds to see it I can get some to produce some round courgettes.

  More of the general maintenance done. Weeding, tomato shoot removal, tomato tying up, cleaned out the chickens, weeding the front drive, mowing the grass, pruning the grape vine etc. My last Black Mountain water melon has been transplanted in the poly tunnel. Never grown one on in the poly tunnel before. It will be interesting to see how it does compared to the ones outside the poly tunnel. More Great Lakes lettuce transplanted. These have been put between my rows of cucumbers. Now if I can keep the chickens off....

Two courgettes on my bush courgette

 

Turn your back...

   Another week dashes by. Here we are in the middle of June. Well, least here in my part of the world we are being allowed to move around a bit. I have been shopping for the first time in over three months. Not a lot of difference other than most people wearing masks and one metre space markers at the checkouts. The checkouts staff are protected by sheets of what I guess is clear plastic sheeting. Anyway I digress.

    The weather has been mostly kind. A little sun, a little rain, not to hot, not to cold.  Not too much of anything to stop stuff growing. In fact it has been perfect growing weather which of course includes the weeds and the grass! So the week has been taken up with weeding, tying up tomatoes, digging up new potatoes (variety AGATA), pulling the odd lettuce and oh yes I nearly forgot planting out Black Mountain water melons. A friend has given me a load of well rotted horse manure. Ideal for a water melon bed. Dig a hole fill with horse muck and chopped up comfrey (good green manure comfrey), mix it all up cover with old roofing felt, cut holes for the plant and a plant pot (used to water the melon) and hey presto one has a water melon bed. Melons love to have warm roots. The photo show two out of the three beds I have made. A forth plant I have to put out I think I am going to put in the poly tunnel. Never grown a water melon in the poly tunnel before. 

   The haricot bed has not been doing as well as I would have expected. I suspect part of it is because of old seed. Anyway gaps in the haricot verte and barlotti rows resowed and another two rows of each sown to hopefully get some succession of the crop. More gaps in the sweet corn bed. Do not know what is going on there for sure. Also the sweet corn bed has now been completly sown.The tomatoes are looking good. Strong, currently healthly plants with first truss flowers starting to show. I have transplanted Mamouth Leaf basil inbetween tomato plants in some of the beds. The tomatoes in the poly tunnel are half as big again as the outside ones. Only the one bush tomato outside has fruit on it  so far. The summer cabbage looks good with my new variety Glory of Enkhuisen living up to the seed notes in that they are going to be HUGE! Winter bassicas looking good. They are enjoying the cooler and wetter days that is for sure. My Champion of England red top swede looks well establish and they to have been enjoying the cooler, wetter conditions. New potatoes are doing well with some twelve and a half kilograms of potatoes dug up so far. Worth about forty two euros if you had to buy them in the shops here in France. (My AGATA seed potatos for 1.5kg cost 4 euros 70 cents.)

   On the chicken front the chicks are growing fast and we will soon be able to see whether we have hens or cockerels. Egg laying is averaging six a day. 

   So on we go! 

Return to cool and damp

   The grass got to a point where I just had to go and borrow my neighbours mower. I am very impressed with his machine and am on the look out for one. All the grass cut within a significantly shorter time than usual and I was not so worn out! 

   I finished forking and weeding the winter brassica bed and populated the last third with Brussels sprouts. With the cooler and damper weather later in the week they have settled in well and the whole bed does look good. I have started to dig up new

Winter brassica bed 

 potatoes (variety AGATA) and very nice they are too! I have transplanted Mammouth leaf basil seedlings which have been transplanted between tomato plants. It will be interesting to see how they do outside the poly tunnel. I have also transplanted Champion Red Top swede seedlings some grown inside the poly tunnel and others in a bed outside. The poly tunnel seedlings are a little bigger but have suffered from flea beetle unlike the outside ones which have not. I guess they will catch up with each other eventually. My grandsons and grand daughter pulled the first carrots much to their delight. Oh what a difference in taste to shop bought ones. Most plants are doing ok but there is plenty to do and I would now like a few days of cool but dry weather.

   Chickens are being chickens and the chicks are growing fast. Unfortunately when we came to move Mrs Bramha and her eggs to a new nest (more secure and less likely to be predated) we found she had not been brooding them well and on the move she abandoned the eggs. None of the eggs were viable. We are now going to incubate twelve more in the hope of getting a second batch hatched.

Chick hitches a ride

New potatoes variety AGATA