One week after the open day and the work continues

Warm and sunny on Thursday so the team didn’t get any of the threatened rain.
Now that some of the strawberry varieties have finished fruiting, it is time to time to cut off the old leaves and if you want new plants, put the runners into small pots for rooting on. Some of the runners have already rooted into the soil and so saved us the trouble.  As the plants are new this year,  just one runner has been saved from each plant, the remainder have been cut off.  The plants have now been feed with fish, blood and bone fertiliser. Once the runners have established a good rooting system, they will be cut off the parent plant and planted out in the new strawberry bed.  Strawberry plants need to be renewed every 3 years: after this they don’t fruit very well so you need to be thinking ahead.

The winter brassicas – kale and sprouts – have shot up with the recent rain so it was time to get them all properly staked with good stout stakes in order to ensure they don’t get blown down in strong winds.

Raspberries are still being picked and the Tayberries are beginning to ripen. Still picking strawberries too, now from the variety Elegance so there have had quality berries since the middle of June. The beetroot and carrots are finally a decent size and worth pulling. Keeping the very fine netting – enviromesh – over the carrots certainly keeps out almost all of the carrot root fly so very few of the carrots show the black-edged holes.

Had the first picking of runner beans and there is a chance there may be a few dwarf French beans next week from the few plants that have survived the rain, cold, slugs and snails.

Jobs for next week: Tackle the summer fruit pruning; Dig up the main crop potatoes