We've had record breaking heat this past week, almost unbearable at my work (a school kitchen); because it's been so hot I've not done as much at the allotment as I'd planned--it's been too hot to get things done after my shift. Normally this time of year I'm there both morning and afternoon; instead I've been going straight home after work to try and cool down in the ten minutes before I have to walk up to collect the daughter from school.
So in the 15 or 20 minutes I have in the morning before school and before it's got too hot, I've finished planting out all my leeks at last, continued picking mange tout peas (sold to me as snap peas, but these are definitely flat podded peas, not the round swollen pods I expected), picked the last of the gooseberries, carried on loosening and pulling bindweed from my wood chip mulch, and of course watering all my containers. Not all of these jobs in one day, unfortunately! Though the daughter has helped water in the morning and the son and husband have done so in the evening.
The cucumber saga continues: the plants growing in my kitchen garden are indeed growing, while I've lost a few more to slugs at the allotment. Regardless, I feel a little more confident about the possibility of harvesting some, at least at home. However, I may not be able to save seed as I have two varieties growing practically in the same bed: a pickling variety and a salad variety. I don't want cross pollinated seed as I really do want both types; I might have to buy seed for next year. Though if the salad variety at the allotment manages to produce I may be able to save some uncrossed seed from them.
It's only in the last week or so I've seen the cabbage white butterflies out and about, fluttering around my brassicas. I've even found a few inside the insect mesh at the allotment; the cabbages have grown so tall they've pulled the netting up enough for butterflies to sneak in. While I have a few unprotected plants at home--the mature spring cabbages I've been gradually harvesting and a few late-sown kohlrabi--I put my last small piece of mesh over my newly planted pak choi bed.
On the positive side, there are also a lot of hoverflies in my kitchen garden this summer. And I mean a lot! I've read they eat aphids in their larval stage, so I can only assume they've been busy earlier in the year. I think they're really cute, hovering around my flowers and plants. While not as populous as the hoverflies, I've also seen a lot of ladybugs and larva going about their business. I let all the bugs get on with it for the most part in both my garden and allotment, and let the resident predators take care of any problems for me, a la permaculture. My policy is live and let live and the only active role I take is against cabbage caterpillars, but not with insecticide or anything like that; I pick them off and give them to my ducks.
Speaking of ducks, it's been about three months since we adopted those three nervous Snowflake ducks--how are they getting on? We officially combined the whole flock in April, about a month after we brought the Snowflakes home. They are much less quacky now, less scared of everything and used to free ranging in the garden; we still lock them up overnight and let them out again in the morning. Boy Duck still chases them once in a while, but they don't freak out about it and he's much less aggressive about it too. Girl Duck has gotten really slow and trips over her own feet when she tries to run; I worked out that she's actually about 10 years old now, and Boy Duck is 8. The Snowflakes, not yet 1 year old, are all laying an egg a day: big tasty ones with lovely white shells.
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