Ups and downs in the Vegetable garden - End of July update

 

The vegetable garden is in full flourish right now and I am keeping up with the watering . We have had a small amount of rain and a couple of cooler days for everything to be refreshed .

Purple Sprouting Broccoli , Greyhound Cabbages and Brussel sprouts all looking fine after a good weeding session and pulling off the tatty lower leaves . I chased away a couple of Cabbage White butterflies and quickly recovered with butterfly net . Isn't it amazing how fast they will zoom in when you take the net off ! 

 I have sweetcorn in several places around the vegetable garden , growing in blocks and I am hand pollenating where necessary too . 

                     

                        I can't eat it , unfortunately , but I love , love , love how it looks !

The tomatoes are really doing well in the greenhouse .

They are even trying to escape though the greenhouse window !  

I am struggling to keep this lot watered . It is hard to get in there with the watering can . Reaching in to pick them is a bit of a nightmare too . I had to crawl in and sort of lie down to reach some of the tomatoes that had ripened in the furthest corner .  Doing that was fine . It was crawling out with my bowl of tomatoes and getting back up again that was a bit of a problem .

Halved and into the freezer to make free-flow packs . The blackberries are coming now too . I'm thinking crumbles !

The cucumbers are also scrabbling about everywhere , like out of control ! 

Plenty of cucumbers still to come . Next year I'll have to think of a better way to support them .

Oh ! My goodness ! The Butternut Squash bed is also going crazy ! 

                    Underneath those sprawling leaves , I can see Butternuts a coming ! 

 

The bad news ....

....well not a complete disaster , as I have been picking and freezing some of both , Runners and French beans . Just not as many as I would have liked .

                         As I go along the row I see whole stems wilting .

                                        Leaves withering .

When I look at the bottom of the plants I can see they have been severed as if someone has cut through the stem with a pair of scissors . 

If it was an animal ,then why would an animal do that ? Nothing has been eaten , the leaves of this young French bean plant just lying there on the ground  .

If you click to enlarge this picture , you can see I did sow more bean seeds and other things too and they were coming up . 

The beanpoles I cut from my own Hazel bushes , so from scratch , putting up the bean frame was a lot of work for me . The ground prepared properly , The beans were grown both undercover , then planted out and some sown direct .  I have always grown Runner-beans and never had a problem with them .         They would grow lush and plentiful , some years I had to re-enforce the bean-frame the crop was so heavy .

Runner beans are easy !   I never had to protect them like I'm trying to now .

So now I'm thinking , maybe I'll have one more try next year .

The seedlings are coming up , carrots , beetroots and lettuce and maybe a few more beans. . . . but I am heart-broken about the beans . 

This is the third year that this has happened .

Sorry to end on a low note .....  sigh .....

I'll try and think about all the Butternuts coming  .... yay ! 

Hope you are having a great week .