Mid Summer Bits and Bobs - 2017.

[peter]

Moving on from my cucumber glut, I now have a yellow patty pan glut.

[Monika]

We have a 'nectar bar', a long thin bed alongside a drystone wall where we grow annuals/biennuals every year to attract insects. At the moment there are teasels, cornflower, pot marigold, clarkia, ammi, fennel, borage, phacelia, sunflowers, godetia, single dahlia and no doubt others which I can't recall at the moment. We do cut them for a lovely mixed flower bunch but mostly we let them go to seeds for next year. It certainly looks pretty.

[Primrose]

This year I'm growing some Ferline (F1) tomatoes and also have some plants from F1 Ferline saved seed from last year's plants. I know these varieties don't always grow true but this year my fruits from the saved seed seem to be far smaller than the originals.

I wasn,t sure I totally expected this to happen as last year I conducted exactly the same experiment with original seed and saved seed from the previous year and as far as an recall all the fruit sizes were pretty identical. Just goes to show how variable F1 varieties can be. Next year I will use original seed . You obviously get what you pay for!

[Geoff]

Rather messy pile of Charlotte to sort out. Good job I dug them when I did as we have had another ¾" of rain since.

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[Primrose]

That looks a good haul and some decent sized ones considering the earlier bout of dry weather we had earlier on. hope you've got a nice safe storage area where the mice won't have a field day !

[Monika]

Good crop, Geoff! Have you had much slug damage this year? And another question: do you wash them before storage?
I found we had to hose the potatoes thoroughly before the slug damage really became apparent. This year we are only growing a few potatoes in the ground (more in pots) because the last few years about half the crop had to be thrown away because of slugs. Neither Nemaslug nor slug pellets seemed to help.

[Geoff]

I don't wash them but dry them and rub them clean with gloved hands and inspect them into 'store' and 'use first'. There are some holes but they don't seem too bad, know better in a day or two, at least no sign of blight this year. I bag them up and store them in a vermin proof (well nearly) cupboard with mesh doors then tip them out every month or so for an inspection.

[Westi]

My spuds were badly damaged last year so I did the Nemoslug this year - seems to have worked all pretty blemish free. Also did the copper spray with some alerts from Blight-watch but only if rain expected after the alert - glad I did! The allotments have been hit; I had a few brown spots on the leaves which I could easily cut out, but neighbours either side had to cut down foliage & the infrequent visitor two up has a bit of a disaster to contend with when next down.

Not 100% confident, but judge against the tomatoes sprayed at the same time as they seem to succumb first, but they don't even have the brown spots yet!

Fingers crossed then! They all got another spray today as rain on Wed but neglectful lottie person's spuds may release too many spores for the copper to cope with.

[Ricard with an H]

I don't have much foliage on my Charlotte yet but I'm growing under cover in the hope this helps protect against blight. Good crop Geoff, how do you keep them in the cupboard ? Just potato touching potato ? How long will they keep ? The few potatoes I ever stored have gone in a plastic bowl with black plastic lining and the lining folded over the spuds. Perhaps a cardboard box might be better ?

I was surprised how quickly the Charlotte and carrots responded after sowing, in that respect it's a good time of year to sow.

I still have a collection of free seed that I'll never use, I'll look out for those pepper seeds for you Geoff.

[PLUMPUDDING]

I've lifted all my potatoes this week because I wanted the space to plant some winter greens and Swiss chard. I let them dry clean them up a bit and store them in paper hen food sacks in the cellar. Like you Geoff I tip them out every month or so to check and remove any that might be going rotten. I put any with slug holes or damage in a bucket to use up first.

[Pawty]

Hi,

The squashes planted around and then over the manure heap are going well - had a peek through the greenery and this is what I found.

Pawty

[Ricard with an H]

I found some pepper seeds I'm not going to use. Both sweet pepper are 2016. the hot ones are 2017. I have lots of others, presumably most of you also have lots of spares.

[Mouse2]

Prompted by Geoff, I decided to lift my own Charlotte potatoes today, before the next wave of rain sweeps in.
Not too big a job as I had only planted 8, but they have produced well.
In the past I have had a lot less slug damage on these than on other varieties. Today, I was a bit concerned when the very first spud I lifted had a slug sticking out of it, but it I never saw any signs of more after that. The only problem was a bit of scab on a lot of them, though I was half expecting that. I think it is the type of soil in my garden, as it has always been a problem here, whereas i never got scab on the lottie spuds. That won't affect the eating, though it does reduce my chances of finding five good matching ones for our village show.

[Westi]

Wow Pawty!

Looking good! That's a lot of squash all looking fine! Best you find another heap for next year! None of mine at lottie are that big yet, even though they are on improved soil, but they are there & look OK - just trying to tame them from climbing up the fruit trees & going onto the neighbours plot.

I found a squash plant growing in my flower bed at home (emptied the pots from the greenhouse there) so I re-located it to the back of the garden - think it might be a Queensland Blue, but who can tell! It's gone up over the box ball structure about 3ft away & is now at the apex of the greenhouse with another stem escaping over the neighbours pathway in the opposite direction & it's got 3 fruit. Hope it's either a Crown Prince or QLD Blue as they store well!

[Ricard with an H]

I read in the times that if I'm over 40 I shouldn't wear shorts or a baseball cap. In the case of shorts it's assumed that us over 70 have varicose veins, scabby skin and lost all of our muscle tone and so tender folks don't want to view this. In the case of baseball caps we look like "child molesters".

I have a collection of shorts and baseball caps for the summer and whilst I stopped wearing the baseball caps when they became trendy for anyone over 40 and now standard wear at 90, I still wear one to deal with the sun when I'm driving. Otherwise I wear various flat caps though now they are on trend I'm having to avoid them.

Shorts ? I still have better legs than some 30 year olds after a lifetime of sports. No scabs and just a few veins around my ankle s.

To date my choices are; for warmth a beeny, to keep the sun out my trusted Tilley that survived watersports on Maui, the Red Sea, The Irish sea, the Atlantic, the North sea, outer Hebrides and other places I forget. It never blew off because it has chin straps, shielded my eyes and ears from tropical sun and is very good for the lousy weather right now here in Wales. Hopefully child molesters won't start wearing them as a badge of office, they will never be 'on trend' though I bet one or two of you gardeners wear a Tilly or something similar.

Hands up those wearing a baseball cap.

PS. this is my attempt at humour.