Wednesday and Thursday continued the fine dry weather.
On Thursday afternoon we did a little more tidying up and planting out on the plot. Our early brassica bed is now filled up although it may be stretching it a bit to call it early anymore.
This is how our brassica bed looked after it was planted up on 03 May this year. Cabbages (Duncan), Cauliflower (Mayflower), and calabrese (Marathon) were all planted through weed control fabric and the whole bed was covered with veggie mesh. The plants had been purchased as an early brassica collection from Marshalls Seeds. Of course the veggie mesh didn't protect from slugs and on the 12 May some of the cauliflower plants had been devastated by slugs.
This was how the worst of our cauliflowers looked after the slugs had enjoyed a meal on our plants. On a visit to a local garden centre I bought six cauliflower plants of a variety called Navona. I hadn't heard of this variety but having checked up it's a Romanesco type of cauliflower. I thought to give these the best chance possible I'd put the young plants into some largish pots so that they'd have more chance of standing up to a slug attack.
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| Cauliflower Navona potted up on 13 May 2016 |
They have grown into decent plants so it was time for them to be planted in the allotment.
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| Cauliflower Navona (6 plants) |
As for the other brassicas they've made a bit of a recovery and I think we only lost a couple of cauliflower plants. Before planting our Navona plants I removed the veggie mesh and tidied up the edges of the bed.
The cabbages in the foreground will soon be ready for harvesting.
I might be able to resist the temptation until next week but these look like they will be the first of this year's veggie harvest from the allotment. We're moving from that extremely lean harvesting period into hopefully a time of plenty.
Of course the veggie mesh has been put back in place.
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This year I have been really lucky with the slugs - I have had almost no damage. I too am looking forward to being able to do some harvesting after all the sowing and planting!
ReplyDeleteWe've had lots of slugs at the allotment and snails in our home greenhouse. Warm and wet now so slug heaven!
DeleteSlugs down at my allotment as well, and here in the garden the snails are eating my kale plants. Hopefully all will survive despite that though.
ReplyDeleteSnails had some of Sue's super special Cosmos plants in the greenhouse. They didn't leave anything to recover!
DeleteI hate snails in my garden. Don't you apply slug poison?
ReplyDelete