Future plans, and holiday prep

Now that Andy Murray has skulked off back to Scotland to work how he can stop letting England down in future my thoughts are turning to my impending holiday. Being away for a fortnight means I shall scarily be relying on my eldest daughter to water my beloved plants and quite frankly I'm very nervous. Last time I entrusted her with this task for a short weekend walking break I came back to a greenhouse full of dead and dying plants. All I can say is that should I come back to a similar scene of carnage I shall devote this blog to naming and shaming her, including posting several embarrassing photographs from her youth. You have been warned! This is a big year for me and I don't want to put any pressure on but rest assured my success or failure all depends on you! And stop leaving anonymous postings sticking up for foxes!

I shall be leaving a daily instruction rota for the different watering and feeding which should be simple to follow even for a non-hort! In previous years my small onions have needed to be harvested once they reach 3.25" dia. whilst I have been away, but as they were planted later this year I should be back home in time to carry out that task. The main thing is making sure the tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and aubergines in the greenhouses get watered each evening. The tap roots are now well down and can manage on water that falls from the sky so they can be left well alone. Everything else will be given a good drenching before I go and unless you get a scorcher whilst I'm gone (I sincerely hope not!) then they should last until I return with my gorgeous body tanned and relaxed.....but no doubt quite a bit fatter!

Thanks to modern technology she can text me a photo of any potential problems so that I can advise her whilst I'm lounging in the sun reading Kitchen Garden or on the beach looking at the various pairs of Table Daintys on display and assessing them for size, shape, colour, condition and uniformity.

Talking of marrows, this weekend I do need to get my Blyton Belles planted against stout sticks and frameworks. They are small plants as I have sown them later this season to cater for the likes of Malvern as I have found the plants running out of steam by mid-September in the past. Les Stothard used to sow in early July for an early October show but I think my mid-June sowing will suffice. I shall place each plant onto a dollop of well rotted muck and leave a shallow 'dish' in the soil so that the water gets straight to the roots. The plants are trained up the poles and then along horizintally so that the fruits hang down away from the foliage. More on this in August.

I hope to take a few photos from the allotment tomorrow evening where my pumpkins have been planted. I also have a 100 or so onions of various variety, some sweetcorn, courgettes, and butternut squashes. The ground has been baked hard these last few weeks and watering is a problem so anything harvested from there is merely for the pot.

Finally, here's to Germany. If they beat the Argies tonight I'll be one step closer to winning my 11-1 bet on them reaching the final. Should be a nice little lump of seed money for next season!

Aint nececelery so!

I vow each year to improve my performance with celery having never won with this crop before. Last year started well but towards the end of the season they succumbed to celery rust and the plants soon looked terrible as the disease took hold. So far this year my plants of Morning Star are ok apart from the odd sign of leaf miner spoiling some of the leaves. When spotted I find the maggot beneath the surface and squidge it between my fingers. Strangely satisfying. Just like shooting a fox.

I digress. Before the season gets too far advanced I hope to get a cover on these plants but one thing you must do is keep them well watered and fed with a fertiliser high in nitrogen. To this end I've been giving them regular foliar feeds with ammonium sulphate but will now change to a soil dressing of nitrate of soda. A fresh scattering of slug pellets every couple of weeks is also a good idea. The plants are in the bottom corner of my garden in quite a shady spot that doesn't get sun at the hottest part of the day.

For fox sake!

Not quite sure about my parsnips this season. Despite all being sown within a few days of each other I have quite a variance in the height of the foliage from drum to drum. One good thing is that there doesn't appear to be any sign of yellow fleckles (canker) on the foliage after a spray with fungicide a few weeks ago.

I am growing my courgettes a different way this season after seeing this method in the NVS magazine. Basically you tie the plant to stout poles as it grows in effect growing it like a standard. The fruits will eventually be borne clear of the ground and the lower leaves can be snapped off as they start to decay. It also allows me to grow other crops underneath.

And you didn't believe me but it's happened again.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3022078/Fox-mauls-boy-in-playground.html

Total urban extermination is the only answer. Any comments disagreeing with this viewpoint will be deleted immediately!