And I only watered it this morning ...Not a good day for working outside in the sun, but I've been doing a lot of digging today, getting the last of the Edzell Blue potatoes out and rejuvenating the land ready for the next crop of Alderman peas, which are on a window sill in the music room and already sending copious roots out the bottoms of their toilet rolls.
This is the vacated Edzell Blue patch being prepared for the next crop. Despite the recent heavy rain the soil is rock hard and very difficult to work. I went out and bought another five sacks of horse manure, and some of that has gone into said rock hard soil to help improve its texture. It also got a dose of calcified seaweed over the surface and then watered in. Luckily there's no hosepipe ban here (I do feel for all you allotmenteers out there, tending your plots at the mercy of the councils who turn the water off at the first available opportunity) although I'm careful not to overdo it. The seaweed meal adds trace elements and stimulates bacterial activity in the soil, which improves its structure and helps release more nutrients. And it makes your garden smell like the seaside.
These look pretty hot too ... orange gazaniasMy Swift F1 sweetcorn is doing better than ever. Last year I had strictly one ear per plant, although they were the biggest and tastiest I've ever grown. This year they all have at least two ears each (the seed was from the same packet, bought from Chase Organics). A couple of them have three.
Echinacea doesn't mind the hot weather so much. This is White Swan, complete with a rather ugly white spidery bug thingy.
4 comments:
I see you're going to plant out Alderman which you have growing on. Do you think I could get a crop if I sowed seed now?
Well, it's a gamble sowing peas in late July ... it depends on how the weather goes in the autumn. But I'm still sowing peas myself, in addition to the Alderman plants I started off a couple of weeks ago. And you can always eat them as mangetout if they don't have time to mature fully.
So I say go for it!
And let us know how they get on.
I went with your advise as well, and planted bean seeds a week or two ago. They are already growing nicely.
Tee hee, you made me chuckle with your comment "a rather ugly white spidery bug thingy" It looks like a spider, and a pretty one too! I love spiders that are the color of whatever plant they sit on. Pink and yellow ones are especially cool.
Ha! I'm glad somebody likes spiders! I'm not very keen on them myself though. Especially those brown stripey ones which make their webs across plant foliage so I come along and stick my head through them ... eeuurgh!
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