It's been a week of tidying in the kitchen garden, we have cleared out all the plants that have stopped producing including courgettes and the last of the summer lettuces. The raised beds were starting to look bare and left us with a real feeling that the warm days are behind us now. So our attention has turned to the new autumn season and have planted perpetual spinach, Pak choi, early sprouting broccoli and kale.
The soil was treated to a good feed, for the brassicas it was lime and seaweed mixed with a manure and water mix, it did smell terrible but the plants will love it. The spinach and the Pak choi got the same treatment but without the lime.
Those greedy little slugs and snails are back and have already started having a nibble of the plants, the Nemaslug will be re-applied next week to take care of the slugs. We will give the area a good sprinkle of advanced slug killer now which will help with both the slugs and the snails. It is the time of year that the slugs and snails love as its the perfect conditions for them so they have to be treated aggressively now.
The herbs have grown well this year, we have mint, oregano, basil, chives, tarragon, thyme, lemon balm, lavender and parsley. They have had a trim and a feed to make sure next year’s growth is just as strong. We have fed the bay trees, olive trees and agapanthus with blood fish and bone and liquid seaweed and plan on feeding our large flower beds next week.
We haven’t had many strawberries this year but as this is their first year, we will forgive them. The plants are looking very healthy however and have produced lots of runners so we have potted these up and hopefully next year we will have twice as many plants and lots more strawberries.
We have continued to harvest raspberries, spinach, beetroot, runner beans, tomatoes, and the last of the lettuces and have had the first pickings of the blackberries and eating apples this week. The parsnips and leeks are growing well and we have been harvesting the sweet corn.
We have still had very little rain so are having to water regularly. We are all eagerly watching the weather forecast but somehow the rain just keeps missing us here.
