A lot has been happening over the last couple of weeks, mostly digging potatoes and pulling up onions. I started digging up the odd potato plant as needed until I spent an evening with Tom in the evening digging up the first lot and then later in the week digging up the second lot. I forget the names of the two lots of potatoes but the second lot did better than the first. Next year I really should take more notice but I think maris piper do best and so will keep an eye out for that. Even so, we had a good potato harvest and a lot of fun digging them up and battling with the red and flying killer ants.
Another one of the big harvests, onions. I had not planted out much this year as it’s the first year of growing them on the plot after last year lull in order to determine allium leaf miner. That, and keeping them under netting, has given good results in that not a single onion was affected and so next year I’ll do a lot more. It was a mix of sets and onions from seed with those ending up smaller than the sets but all still very much usable. I put them all out to dry in the sun, it has seemed to have rained a lot ever since.
Also harvested, although these were actually harvested last month but have been drying out in the sun ever since, the garlic. Very pleased with large bulbs and not much waste.
In the space left over from potatoes I planted out a couple of mystery squash plants which may be courgette or may be, mostly likely, pumpkins. I filled little holes with compost and put them in, gave them a good watering.
The last bit was sowing two rows of swede to replace the failed small plants I put out the other week. I netted these and gave them a good watering. I’ve not had much luck with swedes for the past years and I wonder if this year will be much different.
Lots of watering in the evening with lots of hot weather. The news goes bonkers about ‘heatwaves’ and the end of the world, but this time our temperature probe program at home did detect heatwave conditions for a number of days at least three different times. The average temperature for July for us in the garden is above 20c and I have a feeling that is warmer than previous years (I’ve got the data, I need to retrieve it to find out).
