Sunday 28 June 2009

Succulent

Yesterday we had to pop up to water the vulnerable young plants, and they needed it. I try to water only the soil, not the leaves, and to get water to the area around the base of the plant not all the area around. This minimises the use of the water, but it also means there is no spare water in the surrounding ground for the plants to dip into. The ground is, once again, bone dry and there is no prospect of rain in sight. We harvested about half a kilo of blackcurrants, some spinach, three lovely beetroot and our first few raspberries. All of the fruit has responded well to our watering with succulent berries.

Today we picked more than a kilo of strawberries, which were delicious (we didn't eat them all, we gave most away). We had some more mange-touts which were really good. If they freeze well I'd be tempted to grow more of them to freeze rather than some of the runner beans. Courgettes are growing well, but are not yet big enough to pick. The runner beans are getting flowers, and so are the tomatoes.

In spite of watering yesterday the beetroot newly planted out were wilting and the smallest spring onions were flagging. The forecast is for hot weather so watering over the next week seems inevitable.

No comments: