Sun! Tomatoes!

Quick! Do stuff! Get stuff in! Sow more stuff! Now!

This is the week of industry and productivity: as well as sowing more lettuce, squash and sweetcorn (and the weekly micro leaf tray too of course), plus trying desperately to make more rrom in the module tunnel by placing some rainbow chard and brassicas out outside to harden off a bit before planting out.

I’ve been mainly sorting out the tunnel ready for the tomatoes – and by Monday evening the last one was planted, hurray! I’m trialing about a third of a trowel of charcoal with a few varieties, to see if the charcoal improves either the yield or flavour, or maybe makes the toms last longer/come earlier. Charcoal should in theory be beneficial as it should improve water retention around the roots; plus provide a nice structure for microflora and fauna, and fungi, to live in and around, therefore making soil nutrients available to the plant rootlets. So for Berner Rose and Gardener’s Delight, I’ve planted 5 pots potted on in Carbon Gold charcoal compost with an extra dose of charcoal in each hole, and 5 without the charcoal; and planted 5 plants potted on in West Riding compost with some charcoal, and 5 without. I’ve also tried some Sun Gold cherry toms with and without charcoal, and some St Pierre. Should be interesting… Right, back outside now, stuff to do!

Carbon Gold (left), and West Riding (right) potted on tomatoes ready for planting

Home Grown

Saved dill seed on the right; packet seed on the left

While I know that I should be saving more of my own seed, it’s just so easy to order an extra packet from the nice seed companies – plus I feel a bit nervy about relying on my own skills for next years’ crop. However, last year I did try to save some of the easiest seeds to collect and dry, so I had no excuse. I cut some dill heads and left them to try in my shipping container, collected the sweet peas when they were dried out on the plant, and the amazingly prolific calendula, plus some chilli seeds. So far all the saved seed has germinated super quickly: as they were collected from healthy plants just at the end of last year (ie not stored for too long), they seem to be bursting with vigour. I tried comparing my saved dill with some bought seed, sowing them at the same time next to each other in one big tray; and the results were pretty impressive – plenty of germination, and over a week earlier than the bought seed. So maybe this year I might try and save some more easy-to-harvest seeds, such as beans and tomatoes; especially as any plants that do well will pass on the genes to do well in these conditions (ie my soil type, weather, light etc). I can create my own GM seeds: Generally Magnificient.

Blue Monday

Yes m’lud: I plead guilty to the violent massacre of numerous slugs and snails on Monday the 14th of the month; but in my defence I plead extreme self-defence and provocation. Seriously. We know to expect the occasional slug rampage and munch of bits and pieces; but not the wholesale demolition of entire crops. All this rain has meant ideal conditions for slugs in particular, who have been washed into the polytunnels and every nook and cranny that would normally stay dry and hostile to slugs. So my line of early French climbing beans now looks like a load of sad twigs; the Golden Detroit beetroot is just a desperate wiggle of minute yellow stumps; and the spinach and other beetroot seedlings have just disappeared completely. Cue swearing, more swearing, wheelhoeing the area and re-drilling.

I am planning to construct a pond nearby to encourage toads, frogs and other predators to the tunnel area, but that doesn’t help me now. All the carrots and parsnips in the field which I drilled last month before all the rain still haven’t appeared; they’ve most likely rotted, been washed away, or if they did germinate, slugs have razed the whole lot.

The blighters have also been at it in the module tunnel: greasing their way up the insides of the polytunnel plastic and parachuting down onto the trays below. Some trays of runner beans (15 pots to a tray) had up to 12 slugs hiding between the pots. I’d begun the season by picking them off and dropping them in the compost heap: either to find a happy new life there, or to be munched by blackbirds, I didn’t mind which as long  as they stayed away. However, now it’s got to the stage where I pick and squish on the floor. Passers by must think I’m trying to teach myself some odd country dancing (maybe that’s why line dancing has all that stamping?). I’ve also ordered some Nemaslug; naturally occurring parasitic nematodes that enter the slugs body and kill it, while breeding more nematodes to kill more slugs (harmless to other wildlife). Meanwhile I’ve made some homemade beer traps sunk in the soil by the stricken French beans, now sown again, for a good way to go. This is war.