24th July

Last week we did manage to get the last of the over winter cauliflowers planted and fleeced, with Erin and Calum of on the school holidays, its helping us get planting done and keep the bed weeder going at the same time.

On the harvesting side Erin and Calum are harvesting the kale, so if your kale is not the best, you know who to blame.

We did take out some purple sprouting broccoli plants to plant, but they were just a wee bit to small, we will have a look at them this week and see if they are a wee bit bigger.

If not, another week will not do them any harm, its usually August that they get planted, so another week will not make any difference.

As you will have noticed the pointed cabbage that we are harvesting for the nets this week are enormous.

Usually, they are only half the size, and with the super dry roasting spell they had at the start of the season it is a surprise, although they did get a wee soaking after planting before the two-month drought.

Last week we eventually did take the fleece of off the courgette, squash, and pumpkin plants.

It was a very tense moment, I have not had a proper look, but was expecting that there would not be much of a crop left, they really did suffer the long hot dry spell.

And yes, I was not really surprised.

We had planted ten thousand plants in total.

All the plants were looking good, and we gave them a good soaking before planting, just like we always do.

And without properly counting them, we will be lucky to have about two hundred plants in total left.

I have been planting squash plants for over 35 years, and this is the first year we have not had a drop of water from the day they were planted for over eight weeks.

And on top of that, over those eight weeks, the temperature rarely went below 20 degrees and a few days were hitting 27 to 30, to much for the plants to cope with.

One interesting thing we found out and we will take into next year is.

I ordered five hundred courgette seeds.

And we planted one seed in where a dead courgette plant was.

They have all grown and looking good, do not think they will have enough time to grow courgettes.

But I might try that next year, if they get established as a plant before a drought, they should have a better chance.