Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime

Small Tortoiseshell butterfly

So pleased that we returned home to warm, at times sweltering, weather. The hoverflies, butterflies, bees and other insects are very busy and finally the ladybirds have re-appeared. The rain that fell in our 2 week absence, plus watering by Neal (thanks Neal 👍), has encouraged some good growth - this is the difference in the peppers and aubergine. We had spare pepper plants so we now have several growing in pots as well as leaving some on the Spares shelf for other plotholders.

The tomato plants are looking hopeful for future harvests.

And the pumpkin is growing at high speed, with several viable fruits growing.

The yellow courgette has bright yellow leaves, which is normally a sign of lacking nutrients. We watered it with Epson salts and the new growth is green again. It has a few tiny courgettes at the moment - hope they continue to grow.

Our sweetcorn, sown the day before we went away, have germinated. Not many sunflowers have appeared amongst the sweetcorn but there are a few around the outside and the marigolds have bushed out nicely. The beans that I sowed (Borlotti, Jacob’s Cattle and Gigantes) have been a failure, with just one plant from each. I’ve re-sowed soaked beans now to see if they work better. Luckily the runner bean, dwarf bean plants and broad beans are looking happier.

I pulled the garlic yesterday - some good big cloves and other smaller ones. Can’t believe it’s the Summer solstice already! 

Since being back, I’ve weeded all of Plot7 and it looks much better for it, but I do need to sow a few more veggies there is still a lot of bare earth to welcome the weeds back into. I’ve left plenty of snapdragon and redcurrant tomato seedlings so they can provide a bit of colour and tiny toms. 

The trouble is… if you look the other direction…

Ugh, most of that is Nigella that’s gone to seed and all being choked by bindweed 😫 I’ve weeded round all the growing areas and started chopping down that weedy area to try and get it under control - at least the hollyhocks are looking great and may detract from the weeds once they bloom! In the meantime this creeping red thyme in the herb bed is providing the brightest spot of colour and the hoverflies love it.

Migrant hoverfly

I’ve been watering everything in the morning for the last couple of days and temperatures were mid 20s by 10am. Today is the start of the amber extreme heat warnings with temperatures expected to go up to 35° and maybe more 🥵 And I have a rotten cold - booo! I’ll have to go up a bit later today at least to water in the polytunnel, which is not somewhere to hang around long on a hot day!

We’ve been enjoying home-grown salad (not potatoes yet) with lettuce, sweet turnips, radish and chives plus a few small onions that I pulled whilst weeding.

We’re enjoying watching the World Cup and liking that Hungerford seems a bit more in the spirit for it this time - this is the window of one of our local tearooms (The Tutti Pole) where they always have some sort of Lego display.

And of course we have our England flag and World Cup bunting. COME ON ENGLAND 👏

Fellow plotholder, Maria, and I decided yesterday morning that it’s difficult to improve gardening skills because every year throws us something different. Oh well, we’ll keep trying 🙂 And that is the vague connection to the song title by The Korgis.