2006

Friday 21st July 2006 I’ve been sitting in the sun cleaning up my garlic crop. It’s a very variable crop this year and surprisingly those planted last (almost as an afterthought) are by far the best. Why this is so I’m not sure. They were planted in Geoff’s end plot and given no muck but were mulched with a small amount of compost. Checking back it looks like I didn’t plant them until the weekend of the 10/11th of December. Maybe this year I will do some kind of experiment planting a row in four stages and logging the planting times carefully to see if it makes any difference.

I did do an experiment with a bed of shallots earlier this year. I planted three rows. The two outside rows were medium sized bulbs that I usually plant and the middle row was top sized bulbs that I normally wouldn't use as seed but would eat. The results were not conclusive but it seems that top size bulbs make a lot of medium sized bulbs and medium sized bulbs produce fewer larger bulbs.

2005

Saturday July 16th 2005 A bright hot sunny Saturday at the end of a hot week. Pruned the blue/white Hebe (Hebe society) and took a lot of cuttings from the pruned branches. I find that Hebes are easy cuttings to strike and that a plantpot full of general purpose compost cramed full of semi hardwood Hebe cuttings placed at the foot of a north facing wall (shed in my case) has a 95% success rate. You can even stick them into thesoil on the shady side of any potted plant or hanging basket and they will like as not root there as well too.

2004

The middle of July is a turning point in the year. It is now too late to sow the seeds that we have been sowing in the spring - peas, broad beans, carrots onions, cabbage etc However, there are winter varieties of many plants - lettuce, onions, cabbage and it is not too late to sow and plant some things if you are happy with a smaller crop - late sowing french beans, beetroot are a couple that come to mind.

18th July 2004 I picked up two more old WBC beehives today after cutting through a thicket of mile a minute. Having been left there for some years they weren't in perfect condition - but I think they are worth restoring to a former glory.

17th July 2004 I picked the first plums today and many of them were split due to the large amount of rain we have been having. Took a box of cuttings. I had limited success with last year's cuttings although I was pleased to get half a dozen Viburnum Carlesii from that batch that were taken a little earlier in the year.

16th July 2004 There is a very small pond in the apiary that had become totally overgrown with large wild yellow flag iris. They had to be pulled out and indeed eventually came out in one solid mass after some tugging and heaving.

The woodland floor at the edge of the apiary was growing some nice mushrooms, probably due to extremely damp conditions. I ate several and they went down well once fried and put on some buttered toast. some of the older ones I broke up and scattered around the area that I had hoed over and cleaned up a bit pulling out any remaining nettles a surface tree roots. I think I will plant some snowdrops in that location next spring.

2001

Today and yesterday have been baking hot - so I have taken the opportunity to gather in the Japanese onions, shallots and garlic that was harvested last week and left to dry. Half the row of garlic that is under the apple tree has yet to be dug up.

I picked the first French beans today but left many of those on the best plants for next years seed. I will keep sowing the seed collected from last year's plants for another week or two.

2000

Sunday 16th July Dug up garlic, cropped Japanese onions, picked gooseberries dug potatoes.