Brassica update

Well my caterpillar squidging, disgusting though it was at the time, seems to have done the trick – although our brassicas are still being attacked a bit by slugs, the wholesale onslaught launched by caterpillars was stopped by my return attack and now it’s probably too late in the season for a further massacre, although I did notice one lorn Cabbage White fluttering around the plot when I was up there yesterday.

Things we’ve learned from this:

1. Netting brassicas is vital if you want to keep your crop alive and that netting has to be tall enough to allow the brassicas to grow at least until mid September. Ours was a bit too low and had to be taken off about ten days to a fortnight early. It also needs to be far enough away so that the brassicas can’t grow out to it sideways or up to it vertically because if they do the pesky butterflies will still manage to find the tiny section pressing against the net to lay eggs on.
2. There is no effective organic caterpillar treatment apart from slaughtering by hand – Derris dust is apparently no longer on the market (although you seem to be able to buy it online?) and other alternatives are not organic.
3. It’s heartbreaking to nearly lose a well-established crop, much worse even than having seedlings eaten by slugs or pulled up by birds.

The picture shows unnetted and netted brassicas next to each other. Although the ones that were netted have been nibbled by slugs, they aren’t showing anything like the damage done by the caterpillars on their unnetted neighbours.

Labels: allotment-brassicas, allotment-caterpillar, allotment-netting

Allotments can be difficult

It’s all been bad news this week. First, our baby gooseberry (purchased for 99 pence from one of those quid shops and nursed tenderly by me for two years until it was a thriving plant) went into the ground at the allotment in December. Yesterday Himself came home from a watering session to tell me that all its leaves had disappeared. Given that sawfly has appeared on gardening blogs from Durham to Dorset and back again, my worse fears are playing hell with my natural optimism, and I’m going to have to shoot up to the plot to night to find out.

Second, our neighbours tell us their raspberries have a caterpillar infestation – now that can’t be sawfly, I don’t think, because they like gooseberries and currants but not (as far as I am aware) raspberries, which means that we may be about to have another fruit based invasion to deal with.

Third, I accidentally dug up a tuber from one of our first earlies and it was warty. Warty is not right and fear that we may now find that we have some ghastly soil-based potato-deforming disease to contend with.

I knew I shouldn’t have boasted about my peas – this is what happens if you dare to say anything good about your plot! So instead of showing you anything growing or even a bit green, in case it is the next thing to get blighted, look at how very elegant one of our allotment neighbours is ... I can assure you that nice soap, scrubbing brush and hand-cream by the water tank is not us!

Labels: allotment-caterpillar, allotment-potato, allotment-sawfly

Allotments'r'Us says the most unlikely person

Yes, London Mayor Boris Johnson, famous for putting his foot in it, seems to think that putting his foot in a nice big heap of freshly-turned earth is the right thing to do. We won’t argue with that!

So what’s his big idea? (I can’t believe I just wrote ‘big idea’ and meant Boris, but there you go, one can be wrong in one’s early judgements.) Let me tell you, he wants to encourage backyard gardening even on flat roofs. It’s called Capital Growth and the excellent Rosie Boycott is overseeing the first phase which intends to 2,012 patches of land by 2012 for Londoners to grow food. All kinds of organisations: councils, schools, hospitals, housing estates and utility companies are supposed to pinpoint idle lands which could be converted into vegetable gardens, including mini-plots on canal and reservoirs sides and unused railway yards.

Lovely idea – I hope it happens, because with credit crunches, food miles and soaring energy costs, everybody deserves the chance to reduce their food bill and increase their quality time spent exercising in the fresh air.

Meantime, can anybody identify this beastie? We found it crawling across our enormous cold frame on plot 201 – November seems rather late for caterpillars to me, but perhaps it’s a particularly hardy brute? I carried up to the overgrown end of the plot and let it go – hardened gardeners can express their disgust now – I know I should have squashed it, but I just couldn’t! It’s the first bit of wildlife we’ve found on 201 and that made me feel like Scott finding a sauna at the North Pole!

And on Duncan's plot, the garlic, onion sets and onion seed are all showing beautifully. No difference yet in the germination or growth rates between the direct sow and the paper and paste sow onions, but we'll see how it continues ...

Labels: allotment-caterpillar, allotment-garlic, allotment-onion-seeds, allotment-onion-sets