6th August 2021, Food, Construction and Weather
The Runner beans are doing amazing things. We already have had many kg’s of them but the plants have so many more flowers! Looks like a freezer-full of these this year, although they can be cooked into stir fries, fritters, relish and many other delicious recipes.
What is going on with the tomatoes in the polytunnel? They have struggled to get going this year. The pollination seems to have not been very efficient, maybe to do with the door being closed while we are not there. This will have kept pollinators out for chunks of the day, also when the sun is out it gets very hot in there - we do need a window or something to enable the heat to “get out” and pollinators in…
So apart from a lack of fruiting, these plants have had extra thick stems and these strange growth type things appearing. On closer inspection these are tiny roots, as if the plant wants to throw out some additional roots into the soil… (Never really seen these before!) We have had enough tomatoes so far to just eat them with our picnic at the “Haven”, the rest are very slow to ripen thus far, and now this blight may have arrived for them too.
This is what we have been dealing with this summer: lots of heavy rain showers and then some sun, great for rainbows! The sun, however, has not been enough to really ripen the tomatoes and the moist humid air has been quite enough to bring whatever mold spores thrive in such conditions. Very frustrating on the growth front but also stopping play on the construction front too!
Construction does continue though. Another two pallets down; just the one to go. Chris, the main designer/contractor/builder/project manager, thinks there will need to be some levelling up of the pallets, although they look pretty flat to me, Desi, the impatient one. The purpose of the sand is to get things just how Chris (and I) want them, but lifting pallets up and down is heavy work - beats the gym manifold!
Nice rainbow scene on the construction site. We are so pleased for the polytunnel providing a dry space to retreat to when the heavens open, so at least we can work between these all too frequent shower bouts.
