Weeding, weeding, clearing

As promised, we spent a few hours on the plot yesterday. Weeded the whole leek/potato quarter and the root/onion quarter (well, lots of it!). The green manure (mustard) has grown really tall and should really be dug in, but we'll wait a bit to do that.

green manure

I cleared the pea netting and weeded that area too. Tomorrow we should do the brassica patch. Some of the cabbages look really good but others have been chomped by something - not sure whether it's caterpillars or something like mice - it certainly has a big appetite whatever it is!!

The leeks (all over site) are looking pretty awful - we think it may be leek moth and need to examine for further evidence now we've checked them out on t'internet....

Our poor neglected plot

We haven't spent time on the plot for a couple of weeks, last weekend was so hot and there was grass seeding going on on-site so we went for walks in the sun instead. Jamie did pull some Kestrel spuds on Tuesday.
We went up yesterday though and it's desperately in need of some tlc! There are so many weeds and the Congo potato foliage has all died so looks a mess. We'll go up later and do a lot of weeding and clearing.
We picked 2 sweetcorn. Only about half the cob had formed proper kernels. Soo sweet and tasty though! We also had another cucumber, some little turnips and carrots for snacks while we listened to England footie.
Picked 2 courgettes which should have been picked a fortnight ago - they're giant marrow-sized now. Think I may be living on courgette soup all next week!


Not much room for anything else in our Ka boot!

We picked our first celery plant. We didn't really look after the plants as much as we should have and although they're tall and bushy the stems are weird. Some of the stems and just a shell, with no tasty fleshy bit. The rest appeared to have gone to see so we had some stem which was tasty but not spoon-shaped; more round... Still tasted ok and could have been used for soup, but not really properly grown. Celery needs much more water than we gave it; the ground needs to be almost water-logged apparently, so different plan for next year!

Not everything on our plot is purple, but...

While we were pulling one of the Kestrel spuds I found this lovely little purple centipede.

Mmm, sweetcorn

Picked our first two sweetcorn today. As you can see, one was far better than the other (sorry Jamie!). They were deliciously sweet and worth the wait. We've watered the rest in the hope that there's more time for plenty of kernels to develop - but may be a bit late in the season.

Still picking courgettes to stop them turning marrow-sized - and have got away with it so far this year, though we have given a lot away!

A bit of clearing

Spent a bit of time clearing up some of the plot today. Pulled the patty pan plant - there were just a few small squashes but others that were just going mouldy.

Pulled out a lot of the calendula - we've collected seeds but pretty sure the whole plot will be covered in them next year, given the number of seeds that we're finding everywhere!
Nice to see the rhubarb chard out in the open and glowing in the sunshine again.