I turned the compost over today. This involves pulling the compost bin off the compost, resiting the bin just to the side and then forking the compost back into the bin. Doing this aerates the compost, which assists the decomposition process.
I noticed a plum that looked fairly ripe, only to discover on closer inspection that the wasps had got to it first.
I have been picking a few apples from the James Grieve tree for each of the last few days, and have so far frozen 3 batches of stewed apples.
I potted up the Primrose seedlings. I tried to count how many there were, but they kept moving about.
The pics above show the current state of the second tranche of potato plantings.
Yesterday I harvested the last remaining Pentland plant from the first tranche of planting (I love that word 'tranche'). The foliage on this plant had shrivelled away completely.
Yesterday I 'pinched out' the tomato plants. This is the process of removing the tip of each plant so that it can put its energy into forming and ripening the existing fruit, rather than continuing to grow upwards. The advice is to pinch out after 3 trusses of tomatoes have developed, but being greedy I wait until the fourth truss has appeared.
I didn't expect the Lupins which I grew from seed to flower this year, but a couple are now developing blooms.
Yesterday moring there was evidence of rather a lot of nocturnal fox activity. I had heard a lot of movement during the preceding night, with the sound of foxes repeatedly jumping over the fence from the neighbouring garden. The foxes had strewn someone else's rubbish across the lawn and had pulled the upper part of one of the potato bags through the rigid plastic mesh, half ripping the top of the bag off.
I couldn't post yesterday because just before 13:00 we suffered a power cut that lasted until just after 12:00 today. This was the result of suspected vandalism. We're currently receiving power in 3-hour blocks, so the power went off again at 15:00 today, came back at 18:00 and will presumably go off again at 21:00.
See here for more details
Yesterday I harvested another of the Pentlands that had been planted in the garden. This leaves one remaining Pentland plant from the original garden plantings in the Spring. Yesterday I also planted in the garden plot the remaining Pentland seed potatoes from the original batch.
This is a native ladybird, I believe the country is being invaded by ladybirds from the continent, but those have more spots than our native species.
Flowers forming on one of the Aster plants.
I'm hopeful that these plants will produce a crop before the growing season ends.
There is now some sprouting in the second replanted potato bag which contains 3 Charlottes and 1 Pentland. The first replanted bag, containing 4 Pentlands, is doing well as shown in the first pic above.
Today I harvested two more Pentlands (the two plants nearest the camera in the above pic). The foliage on one of the harvested plants had almost shrivelled away completely, but there was a good crop.
I planted 2 more Pentlands in the spaces previously occupied by the harvested plantts.
At 4:30 this morning I was woken by noises in the garden. I looked out and saw a fox trying to get into the strawberry plot. I went out into the garden and chased the fox off. No video this time as it was only just getting light, and anyway I was half asleep. The photo above was taken after breakfast, when I also noticed that a fox had ripped the potato bag that I had replanted on 4th July. This means that I won't be able to do any earthing up of this bag.
The strawberry runners seem to be taking root well. I've been trying to guide the runners into available space in the strawberry bed. Hopefully in the Autumn I'll be able to transplant the rooted plants, to spread them more evenly across the bed.
There was another attempted fox attack last night, but the FDT (Fox Defence Technology) is working well so far, and has been reset to repel any further onslaughts.
Last night the foxes made another attempt on my strawberries. The netting held again, so the plants were unscathed. What can't be seen on the above pic is that a fox retaliated by leaving a, ahem, 'deposit' nearby.
I heard foxes up to some mischief in the garden during the night (couldn't be bothered to get out of bed!), and discovered this morning that an attempt had been made on the strawbs again. Fortunately, the fact that the netting was well pegged down prevented the foxes from getting at the plants. I secured the netting again as can be seen in the second image.
After harvesting the second Charlotte bag today, and encouraged by the appearance of activity from the bag I planted up on 22nd June, I replanted the 2nd Charlotte bag up with another 3 Charlottes that I had hanging round since the first planting some months ago, and bunged in a Pentland for good luck.
Today I harvested the second Charlotte bag. I got a good crop.
A number of the Pentland plants are turning yellow, so I harvested 2 of the plants today.
