Grafted Peppers, Water etc.

July got off to a good start – some much needed rain, although not as much as I’d have liked to have seen. I suspect we’ll see that hosepipe ban in the north west unless we have a monsoon.

I could cope with a hosepipe ban, although it won’t be as easy as just using a hosepipe but what really worries me is if they decide to turn off the water supply on the allotment. In that case I’ll really be in the deep manure.

Grafted Peppers

The peppers went out in the greenhouse borders, except for a couple of chilli peppers. I’ve found they tend to do better for me in large pots, fruiting earlier and more prolifically. One exception is a grafted plant from Suttons which already has some fruits developing nicely.

Grafting has been done for many years with fruit trees. The system enables any variety of tree (particularly apples, pears, plums, cherry) to be grown to the size the grower prefers. Dwarfing root stocks produce small trees whereas more vigorous root stocks grow bigger trees. Simple!

The commercial tomato growers use grafted plants. Here they can get maximum production with many trusses from varieties that may only produce a couple of trusses on their own roots.

Suttons have taken the concept and applied it to a range of plants for the home grower, peppers included. It’s obviously much more expensive than growing directly from seed but you pays your money and takes your choice. Judging by my chilli pepper, the system works a treat.

Bean problems

Apart from the greenhouse, replaced a couple of failing climbing French beans with pot-grown runners. I don’t know what’s happened with my beans this year, they don’t seem very happy  despite lovely friable soil and plenty of water. The leaves on some plants just turned brown and the plant died.

Watering and Weeding

Kept on watering where needed and only where needed and the ongoing fight with the weeds continues.

Night Time Visit

Every road has one, including ours. An elderly mad animal woman. Now my neighbour is lovely but a little extreme. She seems to attract any cat needing a home in the town and even one of our cats is known to visit her at tea time.

So 10 o’clock at night the doorbell goes and she’s in a right tizz. One of her cats is missing and could we check the allotment. Her house backs onto the allotments and her cats often hunt there. So there we are stumbling around in the dark on the site with her calling out for Battiness. That’s the cat’s name, not mine, honest.

Another of her cats duly appeared, but no sign of the batty one. By now she’s near tears and convinced something awful as happened to little Battiness. We head back home and guess who’s waiting on her step? Yep, the cat.

Well, at least I’ve gained some good karma for the next life!