Such a treat to have a warm spell of weather! For ages my problem was keeping all the little plants warm enough, now I’m trying to cool things down. For years the greenhouse wasn’t fully glazed, one section had a solid roof. Over the Winter Dom replaced the solid roof with polycarbonate and I’ve discovered that on a sunny day the greenhouse is hotter than the Polycrub. Luckily we have a well established irrigation system in there and I can cool the whole thing down fairly quickly.
I have early mangetout in the greenhouse which has sun damage, but it’s starting to flower so fingers crossed. The broad beans outside have flowers too and I’m pleased to announce the first tomato flower!
Potato planting continues. It’s so much faster in dry weather, two boys and one man planted 310 Jazzy seed potatoes in about 90 minutes. Overheating humans could be a new problem though. We aren’t planting all the spuds at once as there’s no way I can harvest them all in one go. One lesson I’ve learned over the years here is that potatoes don’t sit well in the ground on Skye, I think digging and storing from the middle of September is a better option.
I started some brassica planting (cabbages). I’m doing more of a cabbage selection this year. I’ve limited myself to red cabbages in the past as they seem to repel most pests. One of my targets this year is to have more variety available in October, a good cabbage selection could help in this regard.
It’s the first Armadale Market of the year this Saturday. I do really enjoy my Summer visits to the South of Skye. The South end residents love a duck egg, the market’s always well supported by locals and there’s usually some tourists around as well.
This week’s Croft Shares will have salad leaves, pea shoots, chard, Spring onions, asparagus kale and coriander. I can feel the approach of the hungry gap! I’m hoping that broccoli planted this year will be ready to take over from the asparagus kale soon and I have a lot of really nice looking lettuce. Last year voles, slugs and leather jackets ate almost every lettuce I planted. This year seems (so far) a bit less pest filled.
Thank you Betty for the nice comment on last week’s blog – this is definitely curry (and stir fry) time of year!