Sunday turned out to be a nice summer’s day eventually. After a spot of drizzle early on in the morning it took until early afternoon to brighten up. It was a little warmer than recently with the afternoon temperature reaching 23.8°C or 74.8°F.
This is the first year we have made full use of of our WoodBlocX raised bed. Our aim has been to use it to raise salad crops. We've sown radishes, lettuce, spring onions and salad leaves.
Our first batch of lettuces didn't do so well but radishes and salad leaves have been much more successful. Even under the mesh the first batch of lettuces had white fly which must have been on the plants before they were planted in the raised bed. Rather miraculously the white fly have disappeared.
A couple of rows of salad leaves have served us well and we seem to have been picking leaves from these two rows for weeks now. Another row has been sown next to these and has germinated well.
At the other end of the bed one of our lettuces is a variety called Red Fire and is really a heading type but I've found I can use it as a cut and come again variety by continually picking some of the inner leaves as they grow which stops it forming a heart.
The raised bed hasn't completely solved our problems with spring onions although we are pulling some immature onions to add to lunchtime sandwiches. We've already had more lettuce and salad leaves to use than when we used to rely on growing them on the plot. We're also aiming to have some crops to pick well into autumn extending our picking season well beyond that we were used to planted on the allotment.
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The lettuce looks so fresh and crunchy!
ReplyDeletePicked about 5 minutes before eating so fresh as well.
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