22nd june
All the crops in the tunnels and the field are looking good, and harvesting is in full swing.
This season started around 3 weeks later than usual, just with the colder than usual May.
But it did give us plenty if rain, which helped the field crops get a water, and now with the heat they are ready for harvesting.
In the field we have green kale, black kale and spring cabbage all ready, with the other crops looking good but they won’t be ready until later in the year. the courgettes now have flowers, we will be taking their fleece of this week and giving them a wee weed.
But this week’s harvest for the nets will be mainly tunnel crops kohl rabi which we need to harvest, or they can start to split with the heat of the tunnels, and beetroot our tunnel trial crop which has been amazing, along with Ruby chard and mixed salad.
We will harvest the kale and spring cabbage but not for everyone this week, we will start on these when the beetroot and kohl rabi are cut, we have plants sitting waiting to get planted right in behind them as soon as they are harvested.
The cucumber and tomato tunnel right now is a constant weekly job of cutting of side shoots and tying them up.
I hadn’t got in since last week and it took four hours to get that job done, and I harvested the first cucumbers only thirty but that’s a start.
Both the cucumbers and tomatoes need some help to climb up their strings, eventually they will be well over six feet in height, then we will top them.
But as they grow they send out a side shoot beside each leave, and if they are left the side shoot tries to become a new head, if left you would just have a monster bush, and you wouldn’t get as much of a crop, as all the energy is going into growing.
This is where we cut the side shoots of each week, there is usually around four on each plant.
After cutting the side shoot, you then just wrap the top of the plant around the string, otherwise it would just bend over and end up lying on the ground, no good for harvesting and not the best for the plant.
