Making the most of the July garden

Well, we definitely got the leaky June.  Will we get enough of a July to rescue our crops, or have we been just growing slug food this year ?

A few things are coming good.  Tha garlic has died back already, and though not large, it is a great improvement of the tired remains of last year's crop.  We look to have some overwintered onions just about ready to eat.  The greenhouse cucmbers are taking over !

Actually, a lot of things are growing well enough.  The tomato plants are vigorous, lots of fruit too if it ever ripens.  My broad beans are taller than I've ever seen them before, and the pods are finally swelling.  Enough strawberies picked for a jam making evening tonight.

How does your garden grow ?  I'm seriously wondering if I'm allowed to put up a massive polytunnel on my lotty having seen Ploshkin's pictures ...

you might be allowed to put up a medium sized polytunnel....

If it wasn't for the polytunnel I would have had 2 cigarettes and a few potatoes. It's not even particularly warm now so stuff in the garden is really slow. I think I managed to rescue my brassica from the mealy aphid attack. They seem to be growing albeit slowly.

I've sprayed the brussel sprouts with soap solution to get rid of the mealy aphids(and ordered some organic insect killer just in case it doesn't do the job.) It is the one downside of enviromesh, that if aphids or other small pests get in under the mesh, they can wreak havoc without you noticing because of the opacity of the mesh. The birds can't pick the pests off either.

Ploshkin wrote:If it wasn't for the polytunnel I would have had 2 cigarettes and a few potatoes.

Don't you just love predictive text! Or were you just popping out for a couple of sneaky ones where Mr P wouldn't see you.

Ha ha, they weren't very big but bigger than cigarettes!

Of course predictive text is usually American and they call them zucchini (didn't have a problem with that one)

I did wonder...!

Nooooooo ! I've only gone and cut through the main stem of one of my cucumber plants, right near the bottom. I have got more cucumbers coming than I can cope with but that was a bit drastic. I was trimming off some dead leaves and just cut the wrong bit.
It's rather ironic - when I logged on just now one of those things came up at the top of the page that tries to make you go to another site (presumably diets this time) and it said 'Never Eat ....' and there was a picture of a cucumber!

It's a sign!
But seriously, do you think more flowers and fruit will spring up from what's left? I'm growing a melon and some cucumbers for the first time this year, so I'm not really familiar with their growth habits yet.

Oh dear Ploshkin, but at least it's not your only plant.

I'm about to harvest my first cucumber. The bottom leaves are already rather yellow, so I've started on CH's suggestion of a nitrogen rich feed. Homemade, of course, but it absolutely honks.

My cucumber growing hasn't looked back since I started giving them high nitrogen feed. What do you use to make yours Freebird? I also find that the self watering pots suit them really well.

Honking feed - sound like rotten comfrey !?

On old boy on another forum reccommended a different way of making comfrey feed to me, which one day I must try. He put a stake in the ground, and attached a 4" diameter by 5' long plastic wastepipe to it so it is held vertical. You could also fix it to a shed or building. He fitted a stop end to the bottom, with a small hole drilled in it. The pipe is then packed with fresh comfrey leaves, weighted down. For the weight, he used a PET mineral water bottle filled with concrete (I guess if you have the lid, you could fill it with sand, water - anything heavy) attached to a string or wire to lift it back out of the pipe when more comfrey needs be added. The comfrey slowly decays with its own water content, and drips out of the hole in the end cap at the bottom into a bucket you place to catch the resulting feed. Apparently the smell is a lot less.

I had a look in the greenhouse today, and I think I can see a Yellow perfection tomato that is not completely green ! At last.

Just eaten one of my mini cucumbers (Cuicino) with my lunch. We have quite a lot at the moment, though the plants are looking like the initial feed in the compost is starting to run out. So yes, time to start feeding.

Chilli-head wrote:Honking feed - sound like rotten comfrey !?

Err, no, it's nettles. I understood (from watching Gardeners World) that comfrey was high potash and nettle high nitrogen.

Ah, yes. That sounds right FB. Smells much the same though !

Phew! That's a relief. First time I've made my own, and thought I'd done the wrong one.

A sweetcorn question: The silks on a couple of my cobs are starting to turn brown - sooo exciting!
How brown do they get before the cob is ready to check? (I know about the milky liquid that should ooze from a kernel) Do they go completely brown & shrivelled before it is ready?

A pepper question: Something keeps making holes in my peppers (sweet & chilli). Usually just one round hole, about 5mm diameter, either on the shoulder near the stem or right in the middle of one side. When I've attempted to grow peppers in the greenhouse I've had the same thing. Any idea what it might be?

My peppers, after a flying start, haven't bveen doing too brilliantly. I've found that the corner of the polytunnel where I have planted them is quite soggy especially when it rains which it has done a lot until this week. I think they were getting too wet so I stopped watering them until this week. I have just been foliar feeding with liquid seaweed & they seem to have perked up. I planted my tomatoes into growpots or bottomless pots and I think I should have done the same for the peppers.

Sweetcorn - the visible part of the silk should be pretty much brown and shrivelled. It doesn't have to be guesswork, though. An old boy from another allotment (when I used to have one nearly 40 years ago) showed us that we could peel back some of the covering over the cob and test the kernels by digging a thumb nail in. If they're not ready, you can just pull the covering back over the cob. I tend to test early, as if they get too old, they start to get tough.

Don't know about the peppers though. Sorry.