Jobs for the month (July 2005)

July 1st, 2005

  1. The long dry spell has broken at last.  Hopefully any small seeds planted now will germinate and thrive.  If you’ve had trouble with carrots and spring onions, it’s worth sowing some more.  It’s not too late.
  2. Now is the time to sow swede turnips.  They germinate easily and quickly but are immediately attacked by flea beetles which eat the first leaves down to the stalk and kill the whole plant.  The whole row needs to be covered with fleece for protection.  Take it off when the tougher leaves develop.  Thin them out and spray any insect infestations at the heart of the plant.
  3. Interesting to see Jamie Oliver praising the new potatoes of a well known supermarket.  Note the price!  Unfortunately the hot humid weather encourages potato blight.  Don’t imagine it to be some sort of mouldy rotting infestation.  It is the same browning of the leaves effect as was noticeable when they were frost bitten.  However the plant will not recover from this damage and the whole crop will be affected almost overnight.  It will spread to the tubers and they will rot!  Dithane spray is effective and set your sprayer to produce a fine mist.  Spray as much of the foliage as you can to the point of run off.  When digging potatoes try to clear every potato, even the tiny ones.  They will re-grow if left in the ground and next year will appear as strong, healthy, deep rooted plants just where you least want to have to dig them out -  usually in the middle of your spring onions or carrots!
  4. There are fine crops of brassicas on site.  They are prey to a wide variety of pests.  The pigeons eat them, but rarely to point of death.  The cabbage white butterfly is busy laying clumps of its little yellow eggs on the undersides of the leaves right now.  These hatch out to voracious caterpillars which prefer the tender heart of the plant.  Either squash the eggs every day or spray the grubs.  You can be standing proudly looking at a fine row of brassicas and notice that a few seem to wilt in the heat.  This is not good news.  The plant is stressed and there could be two reasons.  First, and most common, is that it has been attacked by the cabbage root fly which lays eggs in the soil near the central stalk.  The grubs hatch out, move down the gap between the stem and earth and proceed to eat the plant’s roots.  If you dig up one of these stressed plants, you find they are virtually rootless.  What to do?  Well you can squirt insecticide down this gap.  I don’t know whether it does any good but it can make you feel better.  The second is club root.  This is a nematode invasion of the roots producing great knobs and deformities and eventually killing the host.  The only way to combat this is to not get it at all, so practice good rotation of your crops as the nematode stays in the soil.
  5. All bean crops are now under heavy attack from black fly.  There are lots of ladybirds about but they’re not eating them fast enough.  Yes we all squash as many black fly as we can, but they cause enough damage to kill the plant so spraying with soft soap or an insecticide is usually necessary.  Keep all beans well watered.  Pick while the bean is young and tender.  Leaving big beans on, sends a signal to the plant that its work may be complete.  Keeping big beans sustained also wastes the plants energy and yours too when you try to chew them!
  6. Keep the hoe going! The weeds will reappear quickly with a bit of rain.  You can compost most of them.  Regarding them as green manure helps keep you positive.  Some of us love weeding!  Mare’s tail, dandelion, couch grass, convolulus (bind weed) and dock can’t be composted unless certified dead by an expert.
  7. It’s the time of year when we are obliged to ‘waste’ a lot of time picking!   Still, we gardeners are not ones to complain, are we?
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