Saturday was a big improvement on the last few days. We managed a few short sunny spells. Although it remained mostly cloudy, the clouds weren't so dark and ominous. It was another dry day to help the ground dry out a bit more.
We used up the last of the prepared ground on the plot to plant out some courgette plants. The ground is still far too wet to use the tiller. I know from past experience that tilling our clayey soil when its too wet creates almost unworkably hard ground once the soil does dry out. It’s far better to leave well alone just now and hope that it will dry out and be ready to cultivate towards the end of next week.
Under our environmesh carrot frame we now have two generations of carrots coming along nicely. The larger seedlings are from a first sowing made on 23 April 2014. These all germinated successfully but large numbers of the seedlings were decimated in a slug attack. The only option was to resow which was done on 17 May 2014. These seeds have germinated successfully too so I'm hoping that the slugs won’t get to these too.
I'd used up all our pea sticks from last year and still had more peas that needed supporting. I’d left a pile of prunings from our blackcurrants, elder, hazel, and laurel in a heap ready to be sorted out. Most of our woody prunings, provided they aren’t prickly, are made into pea sticks after a little more careful snipping here and there. The left overs are added to the compost heap.
I’m hoping that this little collection will keep me in pea sticks for a while. I still have more laurel prunings to sort out if I need more.
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Earlier this year I used a few prunings from my Dogwood shrubs as sticks to deter cats etc from digging up my seedlings. I now find that several of them are sprouting, so they must have rooted!
ReplyDeleteMy pea sticks were from prunings last autumn so I assume there's no chance of them rooting. Having said that the elder twigs looked surprising green when cut. Buddleia twigs are very good at rooting too.
DeleteMy peas need something to clamber up. In the absence of sticks I'll probably use string. Your carrots look good. I sowed some I a while back. I have one seedling. One. I'm clearly doing it all wrong.
ReplyDeleteYou should be able to give your one seedling all the love and attention it needs to grow into a fantastic carrot CJ. More seriously there's plenty of time to sow more carrots. I've sown as late as July and got a reasonable crop.
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