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Welcome back to our weekly follow us! If you missed the last twenty-one weeks, the links to them are above - and as usual - the key is at the bottom: scroll down now!
For once, weather conditions have been unremarkable this week, with a mixture of sunshine and showers at the beginning of the week – followed by more persistent rain towards the end. Temperatures have been consistently below the seasonal average, giving a premature autumnal feel.
Daytime temperatures have climbed over the course of the week steadily from 150c to 210C (which is the historical average). Night-time temperatures have - in contrast -been 7-11oC, well below the historical average of 13oC. Rainfall, which has been mostly light, occurred on four days and produced 21mm. Wind has been gentle to occasionally moderate.
Pea ‘Half pint’ (syn. ‘Tom-Thumb’) sown in Planter 1 continues to be slow with the prospect of only a small crop of peas. While the pods are swelling, growth has certainly been reduced by cool temperatures and it remains 2-3 weeks behind.
The quartet of herbs in Planter 2 have had a stay-of-execution and been retained on the basis that all have continued to grow well (even the Basil ‘British’ is reasonable) and remain a continued source of attraction to a wide range of insects. The combination of the extremely ornate white flowers of the Coriander ‘Confetti’ and yellow flowers of the Dill ‘Dukat’ also look good, and it will be interesting to see if they produce utilisable seed (green coriander seeds can be pickled and are starting to form).
Harvesting of Hearting Lettuces ‘Little Gem’ and ‘Amaze’ in Planter 3 have been curtailed a week early, with the last of the plants used up! The Swiss Chard ‘Bright Lights’ plants have been transplanted into a planter within one of our polytunnels. We haven’t tried this before and it will be interesting to see how they respond to being moved… The root systems were extracted with a large amount of soil adhering to the adventitious toots that surround the tap root so the prospects are probably quite good.
While we would not normally follow one lettuce crop with another we have (for expediency’s sake) broken our rule on this occasion and planted three line lettuces that are relatively hardy and capable of withstanding a couple of light early frosts; this should allow them to crop through October into early November (longer if we are able to organise a cloche in time.) On that note, it’s exciting to say that the development for that is now underway...! The mix of lettuces we’ve chosen contains a combination of Mustard ‘Red Frills’ and Mustard ‘Golden Streaks’ in Row 1 (homemade by combining the contents of two packets!), Mustard ‘Red Giant’ in Row 2 and Mustard ‘Mizuna’ in Row 3. This is a fairly tried and tested mix that combines leaves with very different shapes and colours, and is usually very reliable. We actually have a time lapse clip of these three varieties growing here, which is worth a look. The mustards can be quite hot, especially as we prefer picking the leaves when they reach mid-size rather than as baby leaf, but this can be easily tempered by dressing the leaves. The seeds were sown on Sunday 30th August 2020 and all three varieties germinated within 5 days. We’ll do a head count next week but we have easily achieved the required stocking, almost certainly because we sowed too heavily; the seed is just too small to be really accurate!
Finally, Kale ‘Emerald Ice’ and Kale ‘Nero di Toscana’ (Cavolo Nero) are growing well in Planter 4. Kale ‘Midnight Sun’ continues to lag behind, although comparison of last weeks and this week’s photos suggests it is improving. It is certainly starting to look more impressive with the stem and leaf midriffs developing their characteristic crimson colour, which contrasts with the light green on the remainder of the leaf. All three kales continue to suffer slight flea beetle damage which is heightening our resolve to develop a cloche sooner rather than later. We have been free of damage by flea beetle previously, but this and black onion aphids have made their first unwelcome appearance at Spring Cottage this year…