Despite being woken numerous times by downpours and howling wind, I was pleasantly surprised to see everything looking cool, calm and collected in the garden this morning. I even managed to locate some beautiful big strawberries that weren’t water logged.
After seeing James’ post about suspected early blight, I will admit, I also did a wee bit of a quick looksee. So far. So good. With high humidity levels up here, and all the wet weather, the risk is definitely high. I am also waiting for the zucchinis to go down with powdery mildew early this year, and potentially the cucumbers. In preparation, I will start some seeds after xmas, pop them in a container for easy watering, and put them around at my mum’s while we are away. I am also sure she will be happy to have a few extra seedlings at the end of it all as payment.
I will need to pop out to the garden either this afternoon or tomorrow morning to re-tie a few tomatoes and sunflowers. With significant growth over the past week, we need to tie further up. I also need to wait for this rain to go so that I can start to remove some of the laterals on the tomatoes. I know for some, this is a widely debated issue – to remove, or to not remove. We are of the remove the lateral brigade. However, once they reach about our height (well my height – hubby is 6ft 2), we stop in order to give ourselves a few later-season tomatoes. The frame we have going across the top helps to support this. We also remove leaves as the trusses start to form lower down. As we plant relatively close, ensuring we have good airflow is a must. This is mostly achieved by securing from above.
While checking the garden this morning, I also noticed the corn. A while ago I posted some information about sunflowers inhibiting the growth of plants around them. Please note that the corn closest to the sunflowers are in fact the tallest. With a few trees around, I could also argue that the light might affect the growth. But in theory, the ones closest to the sunflowers possibly receive less light. In terms of water – we are on an ever-so-slight slope. Therefore, in theory, the part by the smaller corn should actually be doing better. Once we get a bit more sunshine – I will actually take a better look to see how environmental factors are actually influencing things more before I come to a conclusion.
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