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With this warm weather I have been watering at both ends of the day- it coincides with filling the horses’ water buckets and so it is no hardship to spend another five minutes soaking the spuds. The first row is completely up now (they were Jean’s seed potatoes) and the second and third rows are just coming through in places (these were Mrs. Geoff’s pantry finds).
We have swelled the rows with some broad beans which were planted in a double row, staggered to economise on space, and some beetroot seedlings that we found going cheap at the local garden centre. Because they wouldn’t last the night with the rabbits around I used an old offcut of weldmesh that was in the garage, bent and folded over the row to protect them. It was buried into the soil about three inches along each side and so far it has got them stumped, but they have been trying hard!
We found a couple of Gooseberry bushes that looked a little worse for wear down at the garden centre, so we took those to plant as well. The observant ones among you will notice that I’ve also left an old spade at the edge for the Robin to sit on when supervising our efforts. I think he approves.
Something that has got me spitting feathers is the idiot who emptied my water bowser overnight last week. Mrs. Geoff started up the engine to drive the pump to fill the horses’ buckets and came over to tell me that there was none coming out. All the taps were on, I had checked the night before and there was still 12″ of water in the tank, so when I checked the tank and found nothing in it I was not happy. On closer inspection it looks like somebody unscrewed the suction pipe from the pump, drained the water and then screwed it back on. It is now screwed up tight with my biggest pair of water pump pliers and I doubt that I could get it off again without a struggle!
Unfortunately we have a public footpath that runs diagonally across the farm and it passes within 10 yards of the bowser. The amount of people walking the path has to be seen to be believed and every now and then you seem to get a coach party with screaming kids, adults on mobile ‘phones and gran and grandad following at the back. It’s a full time job keeping up with the litter they drop. I suppose that it’s a sign of the times that people can’t leave other people’s property alone.
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I ridged up the spuds a couple of days ago whilst waiting for the horses’ water buckets to fill. I think I may have overdone it a little because I don’t think I’ll need to do it again! The ground was rock hard so I went up and down with the Earthquake to loosen it, then pulled it up with a large hoe that was my grandad’s. I covered nearly every plant with a fresh layer of soil but they have nearly all come through after two days and so I’m breathing more easily now.
We have had to fence a large part of the plot off to protect it from the rabbits. The original tunnel that I made from weldmesh is now pretty well redundant as it is surrounded by a three foot tall barrier of chicken wire held up with Mrs. Geoff’s spare electric fence stakes. We had to do this because we were given some leek seedlings which needed to go in sharpish, and somebody else has let us have some pea seedlings as well, so the plot had to be expanded to cope.
We now have runner beans, broad beans, beetroot, leeks and peas besides the potatoes which kicked it all off. The plot now looks like Stalag Luft 3 at Sagan with all the wire around it and I’m half expecting all of the potatoes to have escaped through three tunnels called Tom, Dick and Harry when I come to dig them up.
As for Mrs. Geoff’s cockerel, Guy, which she named after Guy Martin because it looks like he’s got mutton chop sideboards, I’m not letting him near anything that’s got two wheels!
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I can’t believe that the last pictures were only three weeks ago. Compare them with the situation today and you can definitely see an improvement. The potato tops are mostly up; if I’m being critical they are looking a bit leggy, but all of the seed potatoes in the first row are going well. The middle row is a little patchy- these were the ones we rescued from the back of the pantry and weren’t intended as seed potatoes, just maincrop that had sprouted. The third row is similar but a mixture from our pantry and Jean’s to fill the space up.
One thing that did happen last week was that a couple of plants started to wilt after the strong winds. I dug into the ridge to look to see what was going on and the bottom of the stems had rotted and there was no sign of the original tuber. The second plant was the same, so I dug them both out and threw them on the bonfire with the soil that they had been growing in for safe measure. So far the rest aren’t showing signs of wilt, so fingers crossed!
The other morning I was looking at the plants and noticed that there were some new hoof marks in between the ridges. We have a few Fallow Deer that wander around the farm on a regular basis and it looks like one of them has been inquisitive; I can definitely say that Fallow Deer do not like the taste of potato tops!
Here are the pictures from this month for you to compare with June’s ones. The last one shows Mrs. Geoff’s new arrivals which are about ten days old. At present we think they are all cockerels! Oh well, try again!
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