Just Bits and Bobs

Nothing very regimented happened over the weekend till now, just lots of different things got done here and there, plus a few things to show you all.

On Saturday morning some kids with wheelbarrows came by selling freshly picked fruits from their uncle’s field. The prices were great at £1.50 a punnet of strawberries and £2.50 for a punnet of blackberries.

Later that day we had family and friends over on, so lots of food and laughter was had by all. With my perpetual spinach, carrots and sweet peppers I made a baked dish to accompany the other dishes which went down well.

Because the doors and window were left open till our guest left some time after midnight, there was a plethora of medium sized moths in the house. I couldn’t resist taking the photos.

Garden Carpet 'Xanthorhoe fluctuata'

Square-spot Rustic

Plume moth 'Amblyptilia acanthadactyla' a migrant species.

Single Dotted Wave

Scalloped Oak, this is a real beauty my photographic skills didn't do it justice.

Silver Y 'Autographa gamma' I found this one today while inspecting the tomato plants.

Sunday found me pottering outside in the veg patch and later in the greenhouse.

The tomato tasks of tying in, pinching out and removing suspect diseased foliage was done and I found that the ‘Broad Ripple Yellow Current’ was sending out new growing tips from the end of some of its earlier trusses and since there were opened flowers already on them I decided to add a couple of 5ft canes to the bed and tied them in. I removed a lot of the surrounding foliage to stop the area becoming too congested and to maintain good airflow. I have also pinched out the tips of these new shoots and any others forming on trusses. The parent plant’s growing tips were also pinched out as it has reached the top of its cane, the variety ‘Galina’ has also reached the top of its cane and so its tip was also pinched out.

One of the other jobs I got done was in the greenhouse where I pricked out into bigger cells the second crop brassicus seedlings of kale, pakchoi, mizuna, turnips, Chinese leaves and kohl rabi. I am also trying an experiment with the little garlic pips/ cloves I got off of the stems of some of the harvested garlic. I have popped them into what looks like empty soil filled cells, when the have rooted I’ll pot them up further into window boxes and pots to grow on through the winter. I want to see if I’ll get decent bulbs off of them and if the crop will also be earlier or maybe I’ll just use them as ‘wet garlic’ in the late spring months.

Today on inspection I have found the first female sweet corn flower on show.

Following from some research I did last night on when to harvest grain amaranth http://www.realseeds.co.uk/amaranthprocessing.html I did the rub test and some of the plants flower heads appear to have ripe seed ready to harvest. I did think this was the case as I had noticed over the last few days of last week that the flower spikes had become droopy as though heavy with seed. Since the days weather appears to be building up to rain later I thought it would be a good idea to harvest what seemed ready today, so as to not lose any by the rain and wind knocking them out.

And I can’t leave with out my flower and critter shots, so here they are:

24-spot ‘Subcoccinella 24-punctata’

Gatekeeper, still tons of these about.

Didn’t know what the heck this was but research has revealed it to be a Thick-headed Fly 'Sicus ferrugineus', it sure loved the water mint flowers.

The kids morning glories are still producing flowers.

This sunflower greeted me this morning, the seed was given to me by my neighbour, and I’m afraid I don’t know the name of the variety but I assume it is grown more for cut flowers as its not an overly tall variety about four feet in height. The flower is about 5” in diameter.