JUNE 2013

It's Strawberry Time!

Our new families on the plot started with huge amounts of enthusiasm, lots of children running around with trowels, tongues out concentrating hard sowing their seeds.  One Dad made himself rather unpopular by deciding to burn the old carpet he found on his plot, clouds of toxic smoke drifted over the rest of us and he had to be politely told to remove the carpet rather than set fire to it.  He was not overly pleased but finally complied with an offer of help to the local tip.  This family also had a fairly uncontrollable dog which, quite amusingingly and obviously in the spirit of trying to be helpful proceeded to dig large holes immediately after planting was done.  The rest of us watched with interest and waited for the enthusiasm to wane, a second family also spent time and money building raised beds and a large fruit cage.

 

Water Supply At The End Of The Plot

 

Finally the weather is warming up and, of course, the evenings are at their longest, which means work can carry on until almost 10.00 if anyone is that keen.  Having experienced deluges of rain and low temperatures there now seems to be a definite upturn and watering has begun in earnest.  We are very fortunate in that we have lots of water available on the plot and together with our own waterbutts we are rarely without water.  Nevertheless, it becomes a chore when it has to be done every evening and the greenhouse twice a day at the hottest times.  Watering is never so effective as rain and as bad luck would have it the dry weather arrived just as I had planted out a variety of brassicas, which had only just started to put on vigorous growth..  The beetroot was doing well and the first pickings had been made of both the Boltardy and the Golden beetroot.  I love beetroot chutney and was keen to stock up the cupboard once again with as many jars as possible.  

 

When I took over the plot I inherited a large number of chicken wire frames these have proved excellent, I link them together in either fours or sixes with extra long cable ties and grow many of the crops within the frame.  This allows them to be protected from cold winds with netting around the sides early in the season and from the marauding pigeons when the crops are mature.

 

 

 

 

 



 

  

 The cages do have their drawbacks, when covered with netting around the sides it forms its own microclimate within the cage and if the netting is not removed when it is no longer needed they can become very dry and dusty.

The strawberry plants have been netted to protect the fruits which are now ripening fast, I use a series of hoops about a foot high and spread the net over these and peg down firmly trying not leave any gaps that birds can enter and get trapped.  Sadly this year I did have a female blackbird die in the net, this was a first, it was even more distressing as its chick was sitting beside its dead mother - very sad, and I did spend a few days in deep guilt mode.

 

However, we were soon picking several pounds of strawberries each day and jam making was in full swing.  In total I picked almost 25lbs, much the same as last year.  The new plants had their flowers removed so as to put all the energy back into the plant and they are doing well.  Unlike last year when the strawberry picking took place in between downpours of rain, this summer picking was done on warm, balmy evenings in the company of neighbours - just magical!

What of those blight resistant tomatoes in the greenhouse?  They are doing fabulously well, I planted three plants from the local garden centre at the same time to see the difference, and what a difference.  The garden centre plants were growing reasonably well in the greenhouse conditions, but the blight resistant plants were racing ahead, thick luscious growth which quickly formed five trusses of fruit, they needed strong support.

The same thing was happening with the potatoes, these Sarpo varieties promise to be blight resistant but so far we have not had the weather conditions for blight.  The potato top growth is very lush and therefore smothering any weeds which dare to raise their heads above the parapet.