[DazzerelliParticipant]

I applied the nematodes 3 days ago (Nemasys Grow your own £5 for 60m2) and today found a Leatherjacket with lots of White pustules on the surface. I think I’ll risk planting out Lettuce now.

The Nematodes are supposed to work for Carrot fly too.

Darren

[DazzerelliParticipant]

I planted out 20 mixed brassicas last weekend and only 5 remain now. Alliums and Peas are untouched.

I’ve applied some nematodes, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nemasys-Grow-Your-small-pack/dp/B004MLW9OI/ref=sr_1_1?s=outdoors&ie=UTF8&qid=1397208251&sr=1-1&keywords=grow+your+own+nematodes, reasonable price. Fingers crossed now.

Darren

[DazzerelliParticipant]

A bit of Googling and I found out that Leatherjackets numbers are elevated and larvae size is greater in Spring when the preceding Autumn has been wet and the Winter mild, so maybe that explains their numbers this Spring – see https://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=651. I planted out a dozen Spinach plants two weeks ago and all have been decapitated. Rumaging around in the top couple of inches of soil reveals 6 or 7 Leatherjackets per square foot. I have lots of salad leaves waiting to go out and did a test planting of 5 plants. Only one plant remains a week later.

Has anyone had any success with nematodes as a control?

Darren

[DazzerelliParticipant]

An update … just harvested some Golden Acre Primo (II) from right next to where the Greyhound was growing, same conditions, sowing date etc. and the leaves are much thicker, juicier and denser. Good lesson learnt there.

[DazzerelliParticipant]

During previous years I’ve tried to thin the fruit out and failed because, as you say, it’s difficult to find all the fruit, particularly as the plant gets bigger. So this year I’ll just leave it to get on with it.

Should I expect the plants to shed some of the baby fruit? I’ve seen this happening in previous years and thought that this was a problem and maybe the plant wasn’t happy or the fruit hadn’t been fertilised.

[DazzerelliParticipant]

Thanks for the advice Charles. I’ve just finished planting big plants of PSB and Romanesco between any Garlic that looks like it still has some legs and harvested the rest. Looks like a good year for Garlic with the ones that I harvested being a really nice size. Hard work in these temperatures though. Sounds like I’m not coping with the heat as well as your bindweed.

Darren

[DazzerelliParticipant]

Thanks Pete, I’ll give New Horizon veg compost a try. Most days I can’t water my plants until the evening and I’ve found that composts based on coir and composted timber do tend to dry out quite quickly leaving seedlings in danger of being fried on a sunny day. Soil based composts do seem to be more resistent to drying out but are maybe causing these other problems.

[DazzerelliParticipant]

The die back happened when the seedlings were in the seed tray. Since being planted out they are doing well. Maybe it was the JINo1. I tend to use it because it dries out less quickly than most and seedlings can survive a whole day without being fried when it’s sunny. I’ve used it for all seeds this year with good results but maybe I’ll try something else next time for the onions.

[DazzerelliParticipant]

60 seedlings in an A4 sized seed tray in JI No 1. They never went dry. I planted them out a couple of weeks ago. They had a good root system and are looking small but healthy now. It’s not the first time this has happened which is why I ask.

[DazzerelliParticipant]

Anyone know anywhere that sells 4mm wire? Can only find upto 2.5mm which is probably a bit too flimsy.

[DazzerelliParticipant]

Hi Pete,

I asked a similar question a while back

http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/content/rotted-down-sawdust-and-horse-manure

Darren

[DazzerelliParticipant]

Carrots have not been good this year. I couldn’t get them to germinate, or perhaps the slugs got them. Some from the third sowing survived and went on to form small roots with many being overly-stubby – like the main bit of the Parsnip to the right in the picture. Last year my Carrots got first place in the allotment show, in both the Carrot and the Funny Wonky veg sections! Lots of nicely formed good sized roots, with maybe just 10% misshapen. Maybe this year, the later sowings got hit by the dry period mid-year before roots had time to tap into deeper moister soil.

[DazzerelliParticipant]

Hi Charles,

In the picture that I sent to you, the two Parsnips to the left were sown in my garden at home on 25th February and harvested on 27th October. The two Parsnips to the right were sown at my allotment on 25th March and harvested on 28th October. They are both grown from the same packet of Gladiator seeds. I dug up only two Parsnips from each site, the ones in the picture are not specially selected and are representative of what I’ve been digging up from each site recently.

The home grown Parsnips to the left were harvested the day before the photograph was taken and so have lost some of their whiteness. The larger one weights 750gm. They were grown in a 120x240cm raised bed that was double dug from grass 5 years ago. The soil was so hard and stony that I had to use a pick axe. Deeper than 30cm there is mostly Orange coloured clay. Many stones were removed but many remain. No organic matter was, or has ever been, incorporated. The bed has since been undug and annual surface mulches have been applied: horse manure, home-made compost, old potting compost, alfalfa pellets from the tortoise, leaf mould, in fact any organic matter that I could get my hands on. The soil surface is now about 10-15cm higher than the surrounding area. Harvesting has been very difficult as the roots are so long and the underlying soil so hard, but as the weekend, after the recent rains harvesting was a little easier.

The allotment grown Parsnips to the right were grown on raised beds without sides, the soil having been scraped from the paths to make the beds slightly raised. They were dug two years ago, but not again since then. 5cm of well rotted horse manure was applied in autumn last year. Other than that no other organic matter has been applied. When I dug the soil it was very easy to work with, very few stones, deep, soft and crumbly. It must have a good clay content though, as the ground does crack a bit when it’s dry and the soil can be very sticky in wet weather, as is also the case in my garden. Harvesting is easy as the soil is so easy to work with.

The results have surprised me. Given what I have read about ideal Parsnip growing conditions, the results are exactly the wrong way round.

Cheers,

Darren

[DazzerelliParticipant]

I have a plot at home that has not been dug for 4 year. Harvests are still improving each year which encourages me to make sure that I put the work in at this time of year in particular. At the allotment (where I have a few mossy areas) I’m in my second year of no dig and so it’s still early days. Even so, results this year were better than the previous year in what was supposed to be a very bad year – even the annual allotment show was cancelled. I still have a small problem with White Rot on Onions and Leeks and so it will be interesting to see if that subsides as the soil comes alive. I’m amazed to see so many plots devoid of crops at this time of year. I also see a number of plot-holders digging and clearing their weed-infested plots and so laying the foundation for the same to occur next year.

I find that the best thing about no-dig is the amount of time and energy that I save which can be re-deployed in areas that actually help me get results. The next best thing is the lovely fine soil surface that, after a few year of no-dig, is wonderful to work with when sowing and planting.

[DazzerelliParticipant]

Sometimes I think it can be just a bad batch of seeds. Of the 8 packets of lettuce seed that I purchased fresh this year, seeds from 3 of them have germinated very poorly or not at all. Same compost, tray, location, watering, temperature etc. Unless different lettuce prefer different conditions? Maybe I’ll give them another go as an experiment.

Darren

[Author]

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