Wednesday deteriorated as the day went along and after a bright sunny morning, the afternoon was cloudy with the threat of rain.
It’s only the beginning of August but some beds on the plot are being cleared of their summer crops and either being dug over or replanted with some quick maturing crops. Monday saw our early peas cleared away and a row of Tom Thumb and Red Fire lettuces planted hopefully to mature in autumn.
The weed control fabric wasn’t lifted but the soil where the peas had grown was given a little bit of a spruce up and the lettuces planted out. The longest job was covering with netting to keep the birds at bay.
In the bed next to the lettuces our early brassica plants from Marshalls have done their bit and the cabbages and cauliflowers have all been harvested.
The calabrese Marathon has been left as this continues to produce some tasty side shoots.
Our first early potatoes Casablanca and Foremost grown conventionally without weed control fabric have been lifted. These are much easier to lift as required than ones under fabric and so are the first to be used. Casablanca produced a crop of 9.76kg and Foremost a larger heavier crop weighing in at 11.18kg. I was really pleased with the quality of the potatoes as there was no slug or other insect damage at all.
The bed dug over reasonably well after the rainfall over the last week. It could still do with more rain to soften up the soil a little bit more and then it needs digging over again to make sure I haven’t left any potatoes in the ground to grow next year.
I’ll have to compare the yield and quality of these two varieties grown under weed control fabric on another part of the plot. I intended to do this last year but my plans were thwarted by blight. This year blight hasn’t struck to date which I suppose is due to the dry and cool weather so far this summer.
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Thank goodness for the absence of blight - it makes such a difference.
ReplyDeleteTomatoes have escaped too so far this year. Would like some to turn red though!
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