How Grows It? (June) The Sequel

 

 

A week past the end of May; step into June and suddenly The Big Chill is over and it's all Mr Blue Sky.

The sun has got his hat on,

hip, hip, hip, hip, hurray.

 

Everything’s suddenly pushed on through a major growth spurt and all are looking proper lush.

 

The cherry tomatoes are putting on some good growth now.  When planting your young plants and can put them quite deep into the soil.  If you include the first pair of leaves below the compost these leaves will actually develop as a root system and act as anchors to stabilise the plant(s) and stop them rocking about in any high winds. 

 

Monty revealed his own plants from the Tomato Trial on Gardeners’ World last week and for the benefit of being a couple of weeks ahead of ours', and having enjoyed more time inside, they are looking in decidedly better nick than these. 

Anyway, we’ve planted out the only 3 we got (from the original six seeds) into their final position and they are now, finally, beginning to grow away. 

Best keep an eye on them.

 

The runners, though they took a proper battering from the rain, hail and winds are really robust and have put on the best growth, which they usually tend to do, in fact we have a bit of a beanstalk situation.

You can almost see them running up the poles – so we should have plenty of flowers to show, for both these and the tomatoes by the next diary post.

 

The deep troughs we planted as an afterthought with carrots, radish and a few spring onions.  The radishes are firing up a storm, but a word of caution here as radish can be all leafy lovelies on the top to lull you into a false sense of security, but very little development below.  So you pull them, expecting a scrumptiously bulbous radish underneath and all you get is a mangy skinny root. 

 

It might be best to gloss over the carrots and spring onions as when peering into the tubs it’s hard to distinguish between the veg and the weeds that have voraciously appeared.  We don’t want to be hoiking anything out for fear of grabbing the wrong stalk and losing some of the miniscule crop.  This has kind of backfired as we thought it was a pretty inspired use of the deep pots to utilise them for a flower/veg combo but it’s starting to look remarkably like dandelion salad for tea sometime soon.

 

We’ve got a couple of courgettes too.  Not had a lot of luck with these in the past as they have a male/female flower and pollination system.  However, last time this wasn’t the problem as the fruit developed, it just failed to mature and rotted off on the plant.  Anyway it’s worth growing them if just for the flowers which are delicious to look at and also good to eat, so it's win win - worth giving it a go. 

 

OK you guys scootch in. 

 

Huddle up now because I want to say a big "THANK YOU". 

 

What? 

 

"Thank you" to all of you our loyal readers; for turning up every week to offer us your backing and messages of support for our efforts here? 

 

Noooooo, silly; thank you to those exquisite little cut-and-come-again micro lettuces who grow, you chop them off at the knees and then they just go right ahead and grow all over again.  They just reinvigorate and rejuvenate the hell out of themselves and in next to no time you have another crop to harvest all over again and again and ………………………
well you get the idea there.

 

Lovin’ your work my little lettuce compadres.  

 

These are £1 each from Lidl – Sainsbury’s are doing some too at the same price, but a smaller pack size.  You could if you like replant them into a larger home to give the root system a chance for development.

 

These are our own micro lettuce and chard.

Looks like maybe something else self seeded in there too????