I was delighted when we got home from Whitby to find the cucumbers finally appearing. After a few disastrous cucumber-growing attempts, I sought out some 'Moneta' seeds - my favourite variety, but hard to find (I finally got them from Germany!) - and they're doing me proud. I'm watering hard to try to avoid any bitterness in this hot weather, and will be picking later today...
The tomatoes are doing fabulously well and are sooo delicious. We're getting at least a good handful most days now. The leaves of the 'Hundreds and Thousands' have been yellowing and showing black spots since mid-June now. I've pruned, I've sprayed milk, I've sprayed chamomile, but now the tell-tale black patches are appearing on the stems it's clear they've got blight. I'm just glad it's taken so long to progress!
There's still no sign of damage to the fruits so I'm just gonna keep harvesting for now, hope for the best, and try to prevent it spreading to the 'Angelle' tomatoes which are looking much healthier. Last year I raved about how easy-to-keep the Angelle plants were, because they didn't put out any suckers. Well, turns out they do when they're planted at the proper time in the proper amount of properly-nutritious soil... They're growing like crazy and I can hardly keep on top of pruning! The whole lot fell over the other day, the plants got so heavy, and I had to restake them. However, despite their luxuriance, they haven't minded one bit being planted six-to-a-bag.
I'm also pleased to see the first green peppers swelling. We've got a bit of a pepper experiment going on this year, with a few different varieties, so I can't wait to see how they all do... I think this one is 'King of the North' - the same as we grew last year.
Sadly our French beans, which started off so well, are having some trouble. They're empty!
The pods are just flat and sort of limp - and going purple, which this variety does not usually do. They're still edible, but not nearly so good to eat. I can only imagine the problem is poor pollination, but I don't understand - they're only a few feet from the tomatoes, and they're obviously getting plenty of attention. Our garden is buzzing with bees and hoverflies! So what's gone wrong? Perhaps they're planted too close together and the insects just aren't finding the flowers. I wonder if there's time for a second sowing...
2 comments:
Could be a pollination problem or lack of water preventing the beans from swelling.
We usually remove any leaves showing blight on tomatoes which seems to keep it at bay for a while at least. WE only grow in greenhouses now as outdoor tomatoes have just collapsed overnight when they had been attacked by blight
Wow look at that cucumber!
We've had nothing but problems with ours this year!
Martin :0)
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