Sunday 20 June 2021

Disappointed

Squash tunnel
The squashes for the tunnel are released to the elements now, and have been joined by an eleventh member, a spaghetti squash from Plot neighbour, Kate. I also took a patty pan plant off her hands and that’s planted on Plot7. Kate had the last spare Boston squash and all the others were re-homed too.
Rocky cucumber
The Rocky cucumbers are planted out in their pots with a bit of enviromesh protection until they’ve settled in. The brassica cage is a nursery for the bean seedlings now that the polytunnel is home for the Aviditas tomatoes and peppers.
Polytunnel
We didn’t get the torrential rain, but persistent drizzle has helped everything grow and the plots (and weeds) look happier as a result.
The pumpkins have started to spread, naturally in the opposite direction than we wanted so we’ll try to encourage a detour..
Pumpkin
Yesterday Kerry called us over to see this beautiful Scarlet Tiger moth - it’s lower wings are scarlet. It’s on a nettle which is the preferred food of its caterpillar. 
Scarlet Tiger moth
Talking of wildlife…The wildlife plot is well on its way with a few flowers appearing. This is the bog patch, no flowers yet, but plenty of growth.
HAHA bog garden
I’ll do a separate post when there are a few more flowers, but here’s a taster - needed the macro camera for these mini-blooms.
I’ve been pulling some of the over-zealous red shank (Persicaria maculosa) and a lot of the thistles but today we were watching a male and female bullfinch eating thistles on another plot on-site, so it pays to keep some growing there. Mares-tail is one that we’ll pull whenever we can access it, but this stem does look pretty with the raindrop decorations, don’t you think?
Horsetail aka Mares-tail
Today Jamie direct-sowed some Speedy dwarf french beans and I planted out the Gigantes runner beans. I planted all eight seedlings, even the one that was growing upside-down in its pot 🙄
Gigantes beans
Jamie earthed-up the potatoes during the week and added sulphur (brimstone) today to avoid scab which seems to offer an easy route in for slugs. The Nicola variety have just started producing their first flowers.
Potatoes
It’s been a dull weekend, weather wise, and not very warm but ok when we were busy and I made a rhubarb and strawberry crumble this morning so I’ve almost forgotten about the nil-nil match between England and Scotland on Friday evening…
Rhubarb & strawberry crumble
The song is provided by Electronic..

4 comments:

  1. The rain missed us too - just a couple of drizzly sessions. We had a very summery week but today the temperature has dropped and it is quite cold.

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    1. I noticed on the weather that the southern counties have been in cloud while the north was enjoying some proper June weather. Now it's sunny again but I don't like returning to single figures at night in June!

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  2. Things are looking good - especially the crumble!

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    Replies
    1. 😀 Thanks Rob, it was good - it didn’t last long 😁

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Belinda