Know when to call it quits!

The corn I planted was doing very well, lovely thick stalks, extremely strong-looking plants and I was very excited that I would be able to fill the freezer with cobs this year. That was until we had the weather in January that fried many plants, 44-47 degrees over 5 days in a row and we were away so couldn’t do anything to alleviate the stress. By the time we returned it was quite obvious that the heat had left a  severe impact on many of the plants. I thought I’d sit it out and see if they came good (wishful thinking) but I knew that the likelihood of poor pollination of the corn was high.

Today I bit the bullet and pulled the corn out, all was as I had anticipated, the 3 or 4 cobs (or potential cobs) that I found were not pollinated and only a few kernels were on each. So I filled the compost instead of the freezer!

At least the chooks enjoyed the little that was on them!

I felt that doing a green manure crop in this wicking bed would be beneficial so I added some compost, a sprinkling of lime and scattered a green manure seed blend over the top. Raked it in, when this crop sets seed and flower heads, I will slash and turn it back into the soil.

Today was a beautiful day and I managed to get a few jobs done in the garden as well as dealing with the corn. I removed all the dead flower heads and stalks from plants in the cottage garden, saving seed from some hollyhocks, granny’s bonnets (aquilegia) and lineria. Ooops, forgot to take a photo! We have a lot of wisteria shooting through in several spots around the yard and unfortunately the only was to deal with it is to spray. Great care is taken to ensure the spray does not come into contact with anything else but I hate using it. With many decades of untrained wisteria that we have removed it is bound to be an issue for a couple of years.

Plenty of tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, herbs and spring onions on the harvest plate. Think it might be time to do some of Liz’s Bread and Butter Cucumbers. I made these last year and they are beautiful. I will cut back on the sugar a bit as I found them a bit too sweet for my liking but the spicy blend is gorgeous. A secret that I hate revealing because everyone goes YUCK….is that my favourite sandwich combination is B&B cucumbers with blackberry jam,  butter and really fresh bread. Haven’t had it for years, when you think about it it marries quite a few of the taste senses together. Well that’s my excuse!

I’ve been struggling to keep critters from my kale seedlings and did an experiment using an exclusion bag to see if it helped. Spot the difference!

I have now covered the bed with some veggie net that should keep the cabbage moth at bay. I planted some broccoli into the same bed so fingers crossed.

I found a little gem in the greenhouse too. When I planted the rockmelons seedlings I really didn’t think I would see any fruit. Well I was wrong! Not huge but it is a rockmelon or as we have until recently called them-cantaloupe.

One of the fun things about renovating an old house is the things you find that reveal a bit of its history. Mr ATMT was worried that the floorboards under the cupboard in the hall (a lovely 60’s addition) may be rotten and seeing as we are planning on having the boards treated fairly soon it was prudent to check. No, all good (well mostly good!) but we found some old newspapers and a letter to Dr Ferguson selling the wonders of a great new drug.

Tea was a quick throw together of tomatoes, salami, roasted sweet potato and eggplant. Thyme, basil and goats cheese all plopped onto some puff pastry and into the toy oven. Looks a bit like a train wreck but it tasted good!