2nd / 3rd August 2022 - Lots Still Happening As Summer Continues
In the polytunnel tomatoes have begun to ripen. The Marigolds are making a play to take over the whole path, and the peppers and aubergines have finally put on a bit of a spurt. How long peppers take to turn red we have no idea, but without any peppers (or only very small ones) on the plants at the moment, I’m thinking we will run out of summer. Maybe this current state of play needs to be how things are at the beginning of July, not August. We like green peppers anyway! The long green plant pot under the peppers which contains basil is doing really well. The basil seems to like the warmth of the polytunnel.
Outside, the swede are starting to do really well. Plenty of leaves. I’m thinking we will probably grow these each year but we need to work out how many. Maybe 10-12 is enough, especially if they end up doing more than one meal each. All learning!
The raised bed is looking good with the lush leaves of the beetroot and just beyond them (difficult to see) Parsnips, and over the wall with the Lobelia the lettuce farm is producing well. We’re thinning them out now, but like every summer there is only so much lettuce one can consume, salad, salad, salad…
We have cherry tomatoes now forming on the spare plants, round the back of the polytunnel, and things are going wild around the sweetcorn. The beans have finally come into their own and are almost strangling the corn… not sure we have got the support systems right for the runner beans this year… anyhow it’s a mass of foliage and some food will definitely come out of it. The radish to the far right of the picture the last bit of green before the grass is growing nicely…
From the back of this corn plot you can see that the butternut is starting to run rampant making its way out of the patch and onto the unused space of the path between ours and the neighbour's (not active at the moment) plot.
In the last picture the melons are beginning to take off as well, but they like warm weather and they have to grow, produce fruit and ripen in probably two months max… I think we’re up against getting anything edible this year, but we shall see. Cucumbers are finding their way to the orange builders netting, we’re hopeful they will produce plenty as they have some baby cucumbers already!
Check out those raised bed boxes to the top right. We have acquired four of them. Not sure what we will do with them yet, but a useful addition, and helping us to decide on how the plot shapes up from here.
