more tomato

What a great feeling to see the fresh beds after weeding! I sowed fudansou outside and lettuce(iceburg) and kabu in module. I also planted out tomato which were from cuttings of side shoot. They grew huge roots while soaking in water for a couple weeks, which was impressive. Lylia and matina were ready to crop but don't look great. Loads of aphids were around tomato and I sprayed quite strong soapy water out of wash up liquid.

interesting guest

Today we had interesting guests, mother and two children and her Japanese friend. Chris showed the children cropping potato and raddish. Mika, the japanese was excited to see japanese vegetables. It was chilly and good to work inside. I did most weeding and gave comfrey & seaweed juice to tomato and pepper. Chris made a new bed for tomato.

Working party

We had 7 people to join working party today. We are little bit crumsy because we didn't expect so many people came. Good surprising.
It was amazing that 7 people did weeding so quickly and the beds was beautiful after weeding. We planted out tomato, shiso, and sowed shyngiku. I made lunch from our fresh vegetable cropped this morning. We had a good time chatting over lunch at caravan.

shiso

I planted shiso(japanese basil) on the border of marquee, hoping slug won't attack them. It is perenial herb and grows vigourusly, almost invasive in Japan, even in Hokkaido where is covered with snow for more than 4 months. However, people who have tried to grow shiso in Wales, only two though, failed. It's interesting to see.

Basil

I took out indoor brassicas and planted out basil in their place. I planted out basil on the border next to the tomatoes but they didn't grow well and began bolting. Was it because of heat? Lack of water? Or stress by slug attack? Some of them were actually taken by slugs and disappeared.

Tomato, Leek & Ladybird

Inside tomatoes (Lylia) have begun ripening! I took off their lower leaves and pinched the tops off anything taller than me. Aphids are still around but less than before since more and more ladybirds are coming to work. They are great predators, especially their larvae.
Outside tomatoes don't look good as their leaves seem damaged by wind & cold. I planted out leeks outside following the traditional way, pouring water in hole and not firming.

food for plants2

I ordered organic potash and fed them to tomato, courgette, pepper which are all flowering and fruiting as well as other root vegetables. Hopefully the fertiliser will power them up. Perpetual spinach from last year came back and established. I transplanted some of them. I also sowed seed of lettuce and karashina directly on bed.

plant out

I sowed lettuce (cut and come again) directly on ground after brassica today. Cucumber and melon were also planted out inside. Pepper has flower and so does edamame (soya bean). Tomato fruits are beginning to blush!

Baby Carrot

This is the carrot that thought it was an onion, in the wrong row. But it also happens to be the biggest carrot so far. Could this be a case of good companionship?

food for plants

Tomorrow will be windy and rainy according the weather forecast. Rain will be good as plants are dying for water. I retied tomato and sweetcorn against wind. Courgette and tomato look hungry. I gave mix juice from comfrey & nettle & seaweed for them but not much enough. Chris collected more nettle to make juice but we might need to buy some fertiliser.

clubroot

Shockingly I found another sign of clubroot outside rocket. I should be careful crop early and make quick rotation when growing brassicas. I took out all the rocket and chard too. It was hard to pull out horsetail in order to renew the bed.

plant out

I took out komatsuna which was infected by crubroot. Lettuce(little gem) and tomato(Sungold) were plannted out, so was sweet pepper inside. It has been sunny for more than a week and the ground was very dry. Need for rain. Outside courgette looked wilting and I gave them seaweed&nettle mix juice.

Food festival in Mach

Today we joined the food festival at Winnstay in Machynllth. The event aimed at promoting local growers. We sold our salad bags, raddish, kabu and broadbeans.

weeding

The potato and onion patch turned jungle. We hadn't got around to weed as we were too busy to plant out and absent for two weeks. They are absolutely overgrown. We did a big weeding today. I also planted out tomatoes(Welish farmers law & My gilr) outside and courgette inside. Unfortunetaly we don't have enough mature compost and I gave comfrey pellet and nettle juice.
We cropped kabu and broad beans. They were beautiful and tasty!

Pest and disease

We gave a carefull baggy check on plants. Broad beans looked good and alreay ready for crop but some were attacked by black fly. I rubbed bugs and pinched the top to distruct fly although I should have done early. Tomatoes has huge colony of aphid. I found many ladybirds fighting against them though. Soap spray didn't seem to work, so I rubbed them too. Basil were jagged, supposedly by slugs or wood rice, and so were raddish. Outside blassica, such as chinese cabbage, santona, komatsuna were terribly nibbled by slugs and flea beetles. They became too hard because of harsh weather, strong wind and drying. I found these were not marketable. The final shock was the notorious crubroot on inside komatsuna. It was not too bad, probably the first stage and leaves were still fine. However I decided to take out blassica as soon as possible. We heard that previous farmers also suffered from this annoying disease in this garden, which is said to take 7 years to get rid of.

back from holiday

We are back from the 2 weeks holiday last night. We went to the garden right away and made sure everything was all right. Janet, Chloe&Chambo, Cath helped watering and cropping while we were away. Many thanks to them!
Indoor tomatoes grew so big and crazy. Some leaves were curled and showed yellow and brownish spots, which seem some disease or nutrient deficiency. We tidied them up by chopping off funny leaves and sideshoots. Peas look very dry and old. We also chopped old leaves and cropped the most of fruits, which will hopefully help to encourage new shoot and flower.