I opened Beds 1, 9 and 10 today. There were lots of ants under 1 and 9, but no birds to be seen all the time I was there. A couple of beds also had grass vole nests under the plastic and those beds really smelled of wee when opened up.
I’ve had to give up on my seedlings at home; they’ve just not growing as they should. It seems like there’s no nutrition in the compost to speak of. I need to address that somehow next year. In the meantime, I’ve bought:
- 6 x Tumbling Tom Red cherry tomatoes
- 5 x Roma plum tomatoes
- 1 x Tumbler cherry tomato for home
- 12 x French marigolds
- Tray of small antirrhinums
- Small pot of sweet peas
- Standard fuchsia
Part of the plan is to put wildflower seed down in the non-potato end of Bed 7, but I keep forgetting that I’ve still got lots of parsnips there – one of which is about to flower. I also had to cut the scapes off most of my garlic plants. They’ve got a bit of rust, but aren’t dying back yet. There’s lots of self-sown candytuft around them.
I sowed the second rows of beetroot and carrot in Bed 4, and sowed 2 x 2 sweetcorn seeds in Bed 11. I have 4 possible sweetcorn seedlings at home that will survive. Not that I’ve hardened them off at all.
I weeded the two onion beds. I realised I didn’t have a plan for what will go in the beds after them, so I’ll either use them as nursery beds for the house, or do green manure again. I finally planted the 2 perennials for the house in Bed 1 to keep them safe: a small aquiliegia and a small burnet, which shouldn’t need staking.
At least one of my lupins is smothered in whitefly. I’ve been rubbing them off the plant carefully, and I also saw a couple of ladybirds, which are the best defence.
Merlin picked up a new bird twice: the common whitethroat, and I saw this year’s first small diving beetles in the bird bowl today. It was good to see them at last, because I imagine the damselfly larvae have probably eaten all the other ones. The perennial candytuft on the bank has definitely died, so I should see if I can get some seeds – maybe morning glory.
