Sunset from Hill House, Mount Helen. February 2024

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

End May/beginning June



60 brassica plugs arrived on Saturday. I ordered them back in the winter - 60 for May and 60 for June. The May ones arrived on the very last day of the month. I devoutly hope the June ones don't arrive at the very beginning of June! I've planted 15 Famosa Savoy and 15 Skywalker cauliflowers in amongst the bottom broad beans, and 13 (as it happens) Integro red cabbages and 16 Diablo Brussels sprouts in with the broad beans along the fence. The Builder has netted them to keep the pigeons off. I have slug pelleted them to keep the bloody slugs off. So far, so good. I have also put out 2 x pumpkin seedlings, 2x cucumber seedling and 1 x melon seedling in the empty bed. We are going to put the rest in the greenhouse and see what happens and where.
Slugs have been rampaging in my propagating tent :-( I think they thought it was a buffet bar just for them :-( We have taken EVERYTHING out, eradicated the slugs and snails, rescued what can be rescued, put (organic) slug pellets around everything and replaced things. Most of it is not quite ready for planting out yet. Soon, but not yet. And my soya beans are still resolutely refusing to germinate. I shall make one more attempt this year and then give up. I think I might invest in a small electric propagator for next year. The Builder has suggested running a power cable down to the new greenhouse when we put it up and having it heated. We could do, I suppose. But I might start with a little heated propagator first and see what happens. If nothing else, my cape gooseberries will be slightly further advanced. And my soya beans might deign to germinate at all!
In the meantime, We have been to the allotment, seriously pissed off two quite large nests of ants, and planted five sweet potato slips, 2x pumpkins and 2x cucumbers. The Builder has run wire around the ceiling and we are going to try growing the cucumbers and pumpkins up strings to see if they like that. Something ate the 1 remaining melon :-( I shall buy another, for I would like to run the out-in-the-open and the greenhouse experiment on melons as well.
I had some watercress in a glass inside. Unbeknownst to me, the glass dried out. The watercress began to look very sad. When I noticed, I plonked it into one of the pond plant baskets and stuck it out onto one of the ledges. I have to say - it's looking very happy!
We are eating well from the salad boxes and still harvesting sprouting broccoli. Won't be long before the radishes are ready. Tried one yesterday. It is VERY peppery. Made my hair curl and my ears fall off!!!

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