Christina Websell wrote:
Was glad to see my brother had managed to get some horse manure and put in
on the compost heap, there is now a mountain of weeds on top.

I'm starting to wonder if it's the horse poo that brought in so many slugs,
as it's the thing that Nick didn't nemaslug.

The first courgettes have got away from us just with a week of rain and not
being picked. Stuffed marrow coming up.. every day.

I've had 1 courgette so far. 1 fell off with a rotten flower today, and
I picked a slug off one that may grow. I have a week for them to start
producing, or else this will be my first year of no courgettes to put in
the show. :-(

Runner beans doing well. We did an experiment - my brother's beans would
have a trench dug for them filled with newspaper, chicken manure etc to be
transplanted out on top of it, and mine would be transplanted straight into
the ground with bfb scattered on top. No contest. His are romping away and
already have some beans on. Mine are doing OK, have plenty of flowers on
but are definitely not so..luxuriant.

Good to know. My basket-based ones are doing ok, but they are going to need
a lot of watering.

Sweetcorn looks OK. We've never grown it before. Landcress (never grown
that before either) doesn't look quite ready otherwise I would have added it
to my salad today.

Our sweetcorn is way shorter than it normally is, and we don't seem to be
the only ones. Think we put ours in later than normal due to weather.

Spinach has been a disaster. I've sowed it three times, it either does not
come up, or comes up and bolts when only two inches high. I won't try it
again, I'll plant leefbeet.
Beetroot was also a disaster.

We haven't put any beetroot in this year, but normally it is reliable.
Zero on carrots or scorzenera, they went the same sluggy way as the beans.

Peas didn't do that well but I didn't plant enough. I know better for next
year and I will probably sow full sized peas rather than dwarf.

I thought we hadn't done enough peas, but now they're up and running they
are doing well. Surprisingly (touch wood, cover ears, etc) not a single
instances of pea moth yet!