Seven Week Itch?

It is now exactly seven weeks since I signed up for my allotment, and so much has happened since then.

I started out with loads of ideas, plenty of book and internet knowledge but very little in the way of practical skills or experience in how to create and manage a full sized plot.  In fact, it wouldn't have been an exageration to say that my learning curve was pretty much vertical in those first few weeks.

So, what have I learned in this short space of time?

 Pigeons like to eat anything green.  They made short work of the Savoy cabbage that I planted in bed 2, but fortunately I was able to get them covered over quick enough so that they have been able to make quite a dramatic recovery.



Covered bed

I also learned that even if some of your seedlings have been left alone by the pigeons, you can't rely on them always being left alone.  I had put all the spare seedlings to one side, on top of the pile of wood and they hadn't been attacked so I made the mistake of not making sure the netting was over them.  The pigeons found them and totally decimated them, including my three patty pans.

Len, one of the old hands on the allotment, told me that the pigeons prefer to land and walk to their food, which has explained why nothing in my square foot bed has been touched, as the network of strings marking out the squares must have put them off.

The hardest lesson so far is that there is always another pest on the plot ready to carry on where one has finished.



The mauled remnants of my seedlings



After the pigeons had taken most of the seedlings on the wood pile I covered them with netting and planned to plant the survivors on my next visit.

Two days later when I came to look at them I found them crawling with slugs that had taken almost everything that the pigeons had left behind.  They had even got into my onions and cored them out.  I am still hopeful that one or two may survive despite the mauling they have had, but I have moved everything to the front of bed 2, surounded by slug pellets and protected by netting, where they should have been from the start.

Purple Milan Turnip Seedlings

It hasn't all been bad, though.

Most of the planst sown direct have germinated, and are showing strongly.  The ones that surprised me the most were the turnips - first to show with almost 100% germination they are going strong.



Chard going wild



Some of the transplanted seedlings have also done really well, with the chard and leef beet being the most vigorous.

Lots of Leaf Beet

The plan was to keep them under control by regular harvests of the young leaves by my son Will, but he hasn't been to the plot for a couple of weeks so they have got a little bit out of control.  I am going to have to pick and freeze a lot of leaves over the next few days.

Lettuce doing well

The All Year Round lettuce which I didn't have much hope for when it was planted out is flourishing.  A couple of the more sickly plants didn't make it, but out of 16 plants I have 11 strong plants putting out lots of great tasting leaves.

I have taken a few leaves to have for the next day's dinner a few times now, and I am impressed by the flavour.  Definitely one to grow again, I think.

Courgettes Nice de la Ronde and All Green Bush

The two courgettes that I did manage to get into the ground are also doing OK, but nowhere near as good as the chard, lettuce and leaf beet.

There have been a couple of flowers on both, but so far only males until I looked this morning and found a couple of female flowers ready to open, one on each plant so I might get courgettes this year after all!

Brussel Sprouts and Purple Sprouting Broccoli

  Under the netting the brassicas are coming along nicely, most of the brussels, PSB and curly Kale are all about 18 inches tall now, apart from one brussel that has yet to grow past five inches tall!

The plant itself looks healthy enough, it is just a midget compared to the others.  Hopefully it will catch up soon.



Recovering Savoy Cabbages

 In bed 2 I have the Savoy cabbage that were attacked by the pigeons.  Fortunately they all seem to have survived and have put on quite a bit of new leaf this week.

They are still quite a bit behind the three I planted into bed 1, though.

Step dad Ken is still convinced that bed 2 will do best for cabbage.  Personally I think it will be a close thing but I hope bed 1 wins so I can say 'Told You So'



Nearly Ripe Cherry Tomato

 

More Tomatoes Ripening

 Another transplant into bed 2 were my cherry tomatoes from home.

These had outgrown their pots and desperately needed planting out, and have done really well so far, with three  fruit from each this week.  A bit more sun and I will have plenty more ready.

Jack O'Lantern Male Flower

Stars of the show for me so far must be the two pumpkins.



Jack O'Lantern Vine

 I have never tried to grow anything like these before, and now they have got themselves established you can almost watch them growing.

A set Fruit?

Mammoth Vine

Both plants have now got what looks to be two fruit that have set, and with the current climate of sunshine and downpours it couldn't be better growing weather.

Mammoth Fruit

Once they start to get a little larger I will have to make sure that they are supported off the ground to try and keep them rot and slug free.

The first fruit from the Mammoth that I hoped had set hasn't changed size at all, so it may be better to cut it off and leave the other two to grow, but I will probably wait to make sure first.

We are now officially at DefCon One!

War has now officially been declared between me and the slugs and snails in the garden.

It started off small, as these things tend to do.

There were losses on both sides, but more of a skirmish than a war at that point. A few leaves here and there in exchange for a couple of hundred enforced salty swimming lessons.

Then one morning everything changed

.

Two whole brassica seedlings were completely stripped overnight, along with major damage to an aubergine and a pepper. The aubergine is going to be OK, but it is still touch and go for the pepper.

In response to this unprovoked escalation I have been forced to bring out the biological weaponry in the form of Nemaslug, and tonight I spent a happy hour dosing every inch of the front garden I could get to, and also around the blow-away in the back.

Only time will tell if this all-out retributive strike will be successful, but just in case I have placed all surviving brassicas into their own personal fall-out shelters made from 2L pop bottles.

Pop Bottle Cloches

If you don't hear from me again it means that I will have seriously underestimated the slug and snails' defensive capability!

Wish me luck!

Ninja slugs??

I knew it was too soon to celebrate geting rid of the slugs and snails in the garden.

I had been out collecting slugs and snails the night before as usual, and struggled to find any at all, even when carefully folding back leaves to check, and looking down the back of the potato sack that is next to the fence where I can usually find a few nice specimens to be given enforced swiming lessons in a bucket of salty water.

I went out the next morning to do my usual round of the beds before work to find that two of my romanescue broccoli had been munched, one almost completely, along with a large part of the foliage in one of my potato bags and odd bits of the kale.



 

                              

Munched!!






I even found a giant snail on the inside of the door to my blow-away greenhouse where it had nearly reached the peppers and aubergine on the top shelf - at least my plan of putting them high up has prevented them coming to more harm.

I am at a loss as to where these have come from - for the past couple of weeks I have been patrolling the garden at dusk and after every shower to collect and kill any snail and slug I can see - the death count must be in the high hundreds by now.

When I started harvesting them I was getting some really impressive specimens up to six inches long, but recently I have been hard pressed to find anything over an inch, but suddenly all the big boys are back, and they are hungry!  They must be Ninja Slugs - hiding until I have gone past then leaping out onto my brassicas.



Looking on line as to how other gardeners control their slug population I came across a product called Nemaslug, which is a naturally occurring microscopic worm which infects the slug, causing it to bury itself and die. You get a pack of inert powder that contains millions of these worms which you mix with water and simply water the entire garden with it  These things then actually go looking for the slugs in the soil, which appealed to my sense of justice - if the slugs and snails go looking for my veggies then why should I not have a small army of microscopic worms on my side to do the same to them.

I promptly ordered a pack big enough to cover 40 square metres - my front garden just happens to be about 35 square metres so I will even have enough left to treat around the blowaway in the back too, if I am careful.

The product wasn't cheap - including postage it was just over a tenner, but as it is supposed to give six weeks protection per application I think that will be a reasonable outlay for no more eaten seedlings

Pop  Bottle Mini Cloches

As a short-term measure I have used 2L pop bottles as improvised cloches to protect the remaining obviously tasty romanescues - I have also cloched up the casualties, just in case they survive.

If they don't, I have a couple of spare plants in the blow-away to replace them.

The Nemaslug arrived on Saturday, but I didn't have time to apply it then so it looks like that will be a job for today.  I never thought I would be involved in biological warfare, but needs must.  At least it is totally natural, which makes me feel a bit better about it all.

On a happier note, it looks like I may get some apples on my dwarf trees this year.  Both trees flowered well, and it looks like there are signs of the fruit starting to swell.  Not sure what to call the bit that is swelling, I shall have to look it up later, unless anyoone out there knows what it is?

One plant had loads of flowers, but it looks like very few have set, whilst the other variety only had about half a dozen but virtually all have set.  I left pollination to the bees again this year, but next I think I will have to try some manual pollination with a small paintbrush to see if I can improve the setting rate.

The dwarf pear, however, still hasn't even had a single flower, and not even any signs of trying to.

Never mind - time to go and rain some watery death from the skies on my slugs,