Well, a day spent dodging the showers, but overall a productive day at the plot! As you can see from the panorama, things are growing at a pace, the first peas were harvested today, the broadies look like they are going to produce a bumper crop (if the flowers are anything to go by), the tomatoes are flowering, as are the first of the chillies and peppers, the onions are growing well, the artichokes are now 18" tall and the brassicas are coming on strong!
We managed today to get 3 of the 4 squash and sweetcorn beds dug over and planted, which are located in the central bed on plot 2, 80 sweetcorn (3 varieties, Applause, Swift and Tender and True) and 24 squashes and pumpkins (6 varieties, Mars, Hooligan, Jack O Lantern Pumpkins and Winter Festival, Avalon, Sunshine Squashes), we've another 2 types of cucurbits to plant yet, 3 Hundredweight Pumpkins which are going to be planted into the compost bins and 9 that are going into the last of the squash beds (which is still to be dug yet)
We also took the cloches off the courgettes today, they were suffering from the lack of water udre the cloches and the heat, so we've given them a good drink and feed, and now hope they will grow away apace! The comfrey beyond the sweetcorn and squashes was absolutely buzzing with bees today, just hoping some of them decide to move into one of the hives in our first apiary!
Last piccy for today, showing the first early spuds with the sweetcorn and Mars pumpkins beyond it.The other news we had today was from our beekeeper friend, Dave, he's been hoping to split one of his hives for us, and today he found a swarm, which may well become the nucleus of bees for one of the hives in the apiary! We'll know more tomorrow, but fingers crossed that we'll soon have bees in the apiary!
Well, apart from 2 1/2 beds to dig (1 last bed for pumpkins, 1/2 a bed for climbing french beans and 1 bed for borlotti beans) and another 2 prepared beds to plant (1 for turnips and swedes, 1 for carrots and parsnips) the existing beds are now dug and planted, we've still got 1/2 of the onion from seed bed empty, with another batch of seedlings yet to be transplanted (and plans to put some peppers or tomatoes into the back of the bed if theres any room left after the onion seedlings are planted), but after that we're fully planted in the existing beds! At the side of the fedge on Plot 2 (where the strawberries originally were) we've a space for another bed, which we're hoping to use for outdoor toms and peppers, as its a nice sheltered spot, and possibly another bed that we could dig on Plot 1, (where the 2 pallet compost bins are at the far end, next to the plastic greenhouse), which would give us a little bit more growing room, but before we could tackle that bed we'd need to move the compost bins to the side of plot 1. Other than that the only other area we're hoping to tackle is the pond surround, which hopefully will be done sometime this summer!
Hope your growing season is going well, and your planting is happening despite the showers!
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