Japanese Onions, Sweetcorn Stalks and Squash

Changeable Weather

The day started with rain but then the sun came out and it was beautiful so headed down to the plot.

Japanese Onions

I forgot to put down that I planted Japanese onion sets on Sunday. The pack said 50 sets but it only contained 45, which is a bit of a fiddle.. Anyway, into what was the salad bed on plot 29 and covered them with a fleece to keep the birds off until they are established.

Sweetcorn

Dug up the sweetcorn stumps on plot 29, which was a harder job than it might sound. I’ve put a lot of effort into improving the soil on the big bed there but the soil is still best described as heavy ant the corn had put down good roots. Got those dug up and my shoulders were aching from banging excess soil off the roots.

Squash

The squash has small fruits on them but it’s too late for any hope of them growing large enough or ripening so they came up, as did the weed suppressant sheet through which the tomatoes and courgettes had been planted. The sheet is in good condition and will now be used as a base for the path in the large greenhouse.

Compost Heap

The new green bin is absolutely full so it was high time I attended to the big old bin by the leafmould bin.  Because the potato foliage had grown so large, I’d not actually been able to get to the bin. Some of the potatoes I’d thrown in last year had grown so I actually got a couple of pounds of small potatoes out of there. That’s not a success, more an admission of my bad compost management. The heap should have been turned and any growing potatoes chopped up so they would rot down.

Took a couple of barrow loads of compost out that went on to the plot and mixed things up to complete the decomposition process. Added the sweetcorn stumps, squash and weeds I’d dug up and then started cutting down the foliage on the potatoes.

Potato Blight

I’ve got Sarpo Axona, Sarpo Mira and Valor main crops growing on plot 29 and it seems the Axona is not as tough as the Mira. I expected the Valor to suffer somewhat but the Axona is worse hit than I expected,

Unfortunately the light was fading before I could get very far cutting down the foliage, perhaps I should do what the farmers do and spray with sulphuric acid to kill the haulm!

Back home

When I got in, things hadn’t finished. Val had washed and trimmed the cauliflowers from yesterday. So they had to be blanched and frozen along with some sweet peppers (well not in the same bags, obviously!)

There were a few caterpillars, slugs and wood lice that surfaced in the process. To be completely bug free you need to go chemical. After all, if it’s not good enough for the bugs to eat, it’s not good enough for us.

I’m not organic but I prefer a bit of bug damage that may be a little distasteful to unseen and untested pesticide residue.