Archive for July, 2004

Jobs for the month (July / August 2004)

July 1st, 2004

Everything on site is looking good! It’s nice to see the new plotholders with such splendid crops. Are they more progressive or just green fingered? Some of us old hands feel distinctly jaded!
We had unexpected strong winds early in the month but crops suffered little damage. The potato crop looks good and the soft fruit is abundant.
There have been complaints about poor germination of small seeds such as carrot, spring onions and beetroot. After trying three times with three rows, we have a total of one spring onion plant (now eaten).

  1. Lettuce seeds haven’t failed, but now that the hotter weather is here, remember that they will not germinate during hot spells.
  2. Swedes are always easy to germinate but if you don’t cover them for a while, flea beetles eat them down to a stub. The older leaves are tougher and not so easily attacked, although Swedes are a member of the brassica (cabbage) family and the tender central leaves are often colonised with grey and white fly which stunt their growth. It’s worth spraying them!
  3. If you are growing asparagus (definitely a long term project), you may be amazed to find the whole plant becoming a pale shadow of its former self. If you put on your reading glasses and look closely, you’ll see they are being eaten by a small black grub. This is the larvae of the asparagus beetle and though small they are voracious. They even eat the bark off the stems! You’ll have to squash them or spray! No plant will survive being ring barked.
  4. Leeks and purple sprouting should be planted out by now, or as soon as you can.
  5. Treasurer Brian’s tip for successional purple sprouting: plant variety ‘Rudolf’ which does exactly what it says on the packet and is ready for January; then Early Purple Sprouting; then the normal variety. If you want larger headed spears try ‘Claret’ or ‘Red Arrow’. Purple sprouting does take up a lot of space for a long time and it is prone to all the usual brassica pests including ‘club root’ and ‘cabbage root fly’, but it produces tasty abundant crops in the early new year just when you need those extra vitamins. It’s always expensive to buy and any surplus freezes well.
  6. It’s time of year for the cabbage white butterfly which is busy, busy all day, laying clusters of its yellow eggs all over your brassica crops. If you see these, squash them as they hatch into caterpillars which won’t leave much for you. You’ll probably have to spray! If we didn’t have to cover the crop with netting from our pigeons we would have the smaller birds feasting on the grubs!
  7. The weeds are flourishing too, and if your compost bin is overflowing with them, then you could use plastic bags for rotting them down. The ones that are black inside are best (commercial compost bags or bark chipping bags). They don’t take up much room and if you put in a spadeful of manure, you’ll get the worm activity as well. After a few months, they are easily tipped onto the soil you are digging. Weeds are best regarded as green manure. Don’t throw them away from your plot! They carry soil on their roots and you are discarding your precious topsoil as well as losing organic matter. Most weeds are harmless and will rot away, roots and all. The exceptions are the roots of couch grass, mare’s tail, dandelion, dock and bind weed (the pretty white flowered creeper). They should be kept off the soil while they dry out completely, then burnt. The ash is rich in minerals, especially potash.
  8. You may think your courgettes will continue fruiting till first frost, but they won’t! They produce a set number then stop. If you’re not sick of eating them you might consider planting a few late ones.

If you’re going on holiday and would like your crops watered, why not use the WASHA email to ask for help?

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