Long time no blog!
Its been a crazy time here getting ready to take the 3x3 plot to the Leyburn food festival in the Yorkshire Dales -
never been done as a show stand before so it was very much guesswork,
fingers crossed and hard graft, but in the end it worked very well and
looked good. Visitors really liked it and were interested in the small
space veg growing idea, and many had seen the programme or book, but
found it useful to see the plot in the flesh!
On the Harlow Carr 3x3 plot, things are coming up apace! The
cloche salad is outgrowing its space, mainly the red-veined spinach, so
that will be picked and the lettuces allowed to grow on.
Pests have been active - rabbits eating our perpetual spinach and lettuces, and also digging in the carrot rows. Cutworms
initially damaged the lettuce, tho that seems to have stopped now -
best way to deal with them is to cultivate the soil, and have a good
look before planting or sowing, theyre easily spotted & chucked out
for the birds. Now that we have had lots of rain
over the last week and weekend (thank goodness!), there will no doubt
be slugs.... However, at least seed can be sown in moist soil rather than
dust.
The virtual lettuce trial is going well. Those started in modules in April were used on the Leyburn show stand - Freckles
was the most popular by far, and looked very attractive even after the
abuse of travelling to the show and being fake planted in the stand. I also sowed some seed direct in the 3x3 plot, and they are all up now & thinned out. Not much seed of Pandero, so only one row, as can be seen in the photo.
Oriental veg is a good size and useable - flea beetle has had a go. You can recognise these little pests by brushing over the leaves - they will jump out, and if you are quick you can catch them on one of those yellow sticky traps.