Monday 9 August 2010

Back from holiday....how's it been?


After an excellent week away in Devon, I came back to see how the plot had fared, with some good and some bad news.

Unfortunately and much to my disappointment, all of the sweetcorn had either blown over or been pushed and were all sodden, destroyed and dead as you can see form the photo. It's a real shame as they were growing really well, but have now been ruined. Sorry Dad.



On the plus side all of the tomatoes have continued to grow and I was able to pick a tupperware tub full of a mixture of normal and cherry tomatoes and they taste delicious. with plenty more on the plants they should be good over the coming weeks.



The peas and dwarf beans have also had a really tough time of it with the peas drying out entirely and the beans under attack from the black flies, although I noticed the ladybirds were quite happy to be feasting on them. The slugs and snails ate their way through the young plants and now the flies...arrghhh. Once again a real shame as last year these were really good.



The lettuces were growing well, so I picked a couple and also weeded the whole area and generally tidied up.

Also, dug up some of my main crop of potatoes and we enjoyed these with our Sunday Dinner, along with the few dwarf beans that survived and nice sized carrots...so all is not lost.....



I anticipate digging up the remaining potatoes over the coming weeks, for storage, plating a few things for over the winter and continuing with the tomato picking. Also, there are still the Autumn raspberries, but the dry weather hasn't helped them too much, but there are a few at least.



It seems to me that this year has been very tricky with the weather and as I don't get the chance to come down each night to water, I do tend to leave the plants to the elements and this year, they've not done too well.....but there are some successes and I think I shall continue with the fruit and will look much more closely at companion planting for the peas and beans to see if I can help them. I have a great book to help me.