WEEK 1 WEEK 2 WEEK 3 WEEK 4 WEEK 5 WEEK 6 WEEK 7 WEEK 8 WEEK 9 WEEK 10 WEEK 11 WEEK 12 WEEK 13 WEEK 14 WEEK 15 WEEK 16 WEEK 17 WEEK 18 WEEK 19
Welcome to the twentieth ‘Follow Us’ update of 2021, a space where we talk about how we’re growing in our own Ergrownomics raised planters this year, and walk you through how you can achieve the same results at home, yourself...Feel free to follow along, and be sure to follow us on Instagram & Facebook to never miss an update! As usual, key is at the bottom, so scroll down now!
The weather has remained settled this week, with most days dry and sunny; that being said, daytime and night-time temperatures have dropped back to close the seasonal average of 23oC and 12oC (respectively).
‘French’ (broad-leaved) sorrel in Planter 1 has been respaced to achieve the required stocking of 30 plants across one half of the container. Pricking out was easy using a commonplace white plant label, which can be inserted to quite a depth (30 mm is usually about right) below the seedling, and eased up in order to ensure the root system comes away with a good chunk of adhering soil. This gives the plant the greatest prospect of re-establishing in its new position. We normally refit the cloche for a few days after respacing as the high humidity this creates reduces stress, and allows the seedlings to ‘find their feet’ again.
There is still no sign of the ‘Red-veined’ sorrel germinating. We normally sow this in the early autumn and have never had any problems so we suspect its failure on this occasion is related to the high temperatures we’ve experienced since sowing (which peaked last week at 30oC).
Carrot ‘Imperator mix’ in Planter 2 is the very definition of low maintenance in that it requires virtually no attention at all. The dense foliage minimises opportunities for weeds to establish and the risk of carrot fly is ‘covered off’ by the height of the planters. Raising the height of the plant training is really all that is required.
The four basils in Planter 3 have continued to grow well but we have now removed the cloche as we were starting to see the tell-tale blackening of leaves caused by Cercospora leaf spot infection. We suspected this would happen as the cloche is unventilated; notwithstanding this, the cloche has got the plants to the stage where they are well established and capable of withstanding the vagaries of the weather. We’ve chosen to remove seedlings (roots included) as and when required, and this is working really well, so we’ve effectively been harvesting the plants since week 4! We haven’t been excessively ‘hung up’ on taking any one basil at a time, and usually it’s a handful of stems from all four. The seedlings are so tender we usually chop both the leaves and stems and discard only the root itself.
Excitingly, we’ve started harvesting dwarf French bean ‘Speedy’ in Planter 4, which has almost overnight produced a very large number of full size ‘French’ beans. These are very uniform with each one around120 mm in length, 5-6 mm in diameter and straight as a die. The beans hang down from the plant in bunches and are very easy to pick. They are considerably smarter than our ‘Purple Teepee’, which are a bit all of the place in terms of size and shape! While Dwarf ‘French beans’ are great for container growing, one downside is that they crop over a relatively short window. Three weeks is really about it, and they are far less long-lasting that climbing ‘French’ beans which continue flowering, and hence producing pods over an extended period of 4-8 weeks. We have generally steered clear of using trellises but this would be an option to allow climbing ‘French’ beans to be grown where the planter is positioned against a wall or a fence.
Our star of the show this week is Agapanthus africanus ‘Star Quality’ which is the deepest blue African lily we could find! This is planted in a bed dividing our outdoor planting area from our polytunnels. While the plants have taken 3 years to establish they are now starting to pay dividends and this is the best display we’ve had so far. The plants are loved by bees which perform impressive acrobatics to get in and out of the long ‘trumpet shaped’ flowers.