Slugs, Weeds and a Frog

Jamie found this frog beside our brassica cage! Lovely - I love frogs :-) I popped it in a nearby pond, but hopefully it'll keep visiting our plot - there's certainly plenty for it to eat!

Little froggy!

Slugs have even developed an appetite for potato leaves this year - and look at our poor pepper! That was the one I took the photo of at the end of June :-(

The weeds have had a field day! They aren't very tall but they're everywhere.

Unweeded row (on the right!)

At least you can see where we've been and after taking this pic the other row of celeriac was also cleared. I found this information about celeriac before I bought our plants so surely it should be the perfect year for it!!

"Water it like mad. If you’re flooded, and the fire brigade evacuate you, sneak back during the
night to water your celeriac, even if it is under a foot of water. It will never have too
much water. Then water it again."

The onions are looking good, hopefully the mildew resistance is working as we've seen it elsewhere on site. We watered the spring onions with some epson salts as the leaves are yellowing a bit - they need the extra magnesium. Whereas the shallots are yellowing and dying back so they'll be ready to pull soon and then we need to find somewhere to dry them off prior to pickling..

Silverskins

There is a distinct lack of insect life on the plot, hardly  a butterfly in sight. These are the first black fly we've seen this year - these are being farmed by the ants! Still undecided as to whether the ants are going to help reduce or cause more blackfly to breed. We'll wait and see - slightly ashamed to say that they're not on our beans so not our problem at present :-)

Red Ants and Blackfly

We pulled the sickly potato (it's a kestrel), there were just 3 tiny tubers. It's the only kestrel plant that's in trouble, the others have very healthy haulms.

Sickly Kestrel

Healthy Kestrels

The runner beans have finally reached the top of the canes and there are a few flowers. There were a couple of bees working them today when the rain stayed off for a bit so hopefully we'll get some beans.