Up until yesterday we have been having terribly hot and dry days here. We have been having long days at the lottie and returning drained of perspiration and energy. We were basically eating a quick supper, showering watching a portion of footy and going to bed.? So then, what have we been up to? Take a look. To begin with, a couple of foto’s showing the sun and the late afternoon shadow: The bees have been asking for attention, so I have looked in on them and given them more room. I also had some old frames from last year that had to be melted. Of course one can buy wonderful new solar melters, but we had some derelict items that we threw together and made our own melter. Look at that temp ! We were able to melt all the wax bits and made a great tart, which I will scrape clean and then re-melt and filter through a double fine mesh later on. We have again a bit of a problem on the complex with the Buxus moth. Look at this stretch of hedge: You can see one of the culprits n the foto, but there were literally hundreds of them. We have had some very serious bad luck this year with our spuds. Out of the twenty that I planted, only four came up. We dug in and found nothing, not even a skin. So, what to do then—we planted some B. Sprouts. That was not the only thing that went south; one bed of our second year strawb patch all died with what we call verwelkingsziekte. I had to look that one up— in english, it is something like, “verticillium wilt”. This is a disease passed on from potato’s. At any rate, the whole patch had to be removed, so we dug up the whole thing, cleaned it up and planted endive for the Food Bank. We put down straw and netted the other two beds...and have now had a reasonable harvest up to this moment. Those babies were destined for this reassignment and the others frozen in to be made into jam. Here the reassigned strawbs: This ends part one...I like ending on a gastronomic note.
Darn Sjoerd ! I can`t imagine you having a failure on anything ! But those strawberries sure look good !
Your poor hedge! I sure hope it rebounds for you. We are having an epidemic of Gypsy moths here in Ontario. The larvae are EVERYWHERE and the tops of some trees are completely naked. Those strawberries look delicious
Thanks Mart, yeah those disappointments were ....well.....disappointing. We may have to change some planting plans for next year. I’m with you on how those strawbs look. They were delicious. Netty, that hedge was up the way, not ours thankfully. In this country these worms have been a serious problem for a coupla years now. I am sorry to hear that you are having problems with Gypsy moths there. That promises to be a real challenge environmentally. Glad you liked the strawbs. Thank you. Thanks Sean, I do lurve a good strawb.
Sjoerd, good gardeners are flexible--if one crop dies out, plant something else--and you are a great gardener! Our potatoes were disappointing this year, too. I think I planted a bit late due to the February snow/ice storm, and then we had a very wet spring, which didn't help. Your strawberries are almost too pretty to eat, almost . . . .
Sjoerd I think Florida had a similar problem with caterpillars two years ago, but on their ficus. The hedges were denuded but they have all come roaring back. Gypsy moths do the same thing up north here, that is until the population collapses. So sorry about the verticillium wilt! But your other strawberries look delicious!
So sorry about the serious problems. Gardening is an IFFY labor. Is it too late for late potato replant? Thus far we have only good growing. Fingers crossed! Sjoerd, I forgot to ask, what type flower is that lovely, yellow flower?
Hello Jane, thank you so much for that exaggerated compliment...I’ll take it, I’ll take it. I was forced to plant too late as well. It was a too late delivery of the seed potatos and the weather. I think that they just rotted. I was not amused with Mother Nature’s cruel joke. Tja...you are too right about those strawbs. Cayu—Thanks for the condolences Re: the strawb wilt. Like you said though, the other two beds are producing, but the voles are merciless and are taking about a third of the fruits. What drives me round the bend is that they are only taking a bite out of each one and leaving it lie. I was only able to catch two of the, they take fruits from right beside the traps sometimes. I can picture them thumbing their noses at me when they are having their moonlight meals. Gurrrrrrrrr ! GP— thst white and yellow flower is Limnanthus douglasii. I cannot recall the english name at the moment.
Major bummer about the strawberries Sjoerd. Your crop is beset on two fronts, isn't it? Our Community Garden had been waging battles with the voles too. The latest plan of attack has been to bury hardware cloth (1/4") about 5 inches deep either around the strawberry patch itself or around the whole plot (our plots are tiny compared to yours, keep in mind. Just 20x20). The rest of the hardware cloth sticks up a foot or more so that the belligerent little buggers can neither dig under nor crawl over. Here are some photos This one is my plot. I just dug the hardware cloth around my strawberry bed. Can you see the wire fence sticking up? That's it. Don't take too good a look at the strawberries, please. They have been a FAIL. I bought rooted plants but I think the roots had rotted. They never grew. So I went out and bought a few expensive plants. Next year I hope to do better. This is C's plot. She's a whippersnapper! Recent graduate of an ivy league school, always doing something interesting with her plot. She's got a rain barrel that she fills with water from our pump, then she has drip irrigation tubes to her plants. Anyway I am off topic. Her plot was beset by voles last year, so she has surrounded the whole thing with hardware cloth, 5" deep. Another gardener has done the same thing only this second gardener has been setting vole traps to eliminate the voles INSIDE the fence. Meanwhile, I am sitting on the sidelines, observing. If their gardens manage to foil the voles, i might put the effort in next spring to do the whole garden plot.
I get the same feeling when a groundhog manages to bite into a beautiful, ripe tomato, then goes to the next one. GRRRR!. We use a similar wire method to keep groundhogs out.
You are right, Cayu...those two remaining patches saved my bacon. I looked over this recent comment of yours and got the Bride involved. As luck would have it, there is a yet unopened roll of that stuff you call “hardware cloth”. We discussed the possibility of doing what you did with your strawb patch. We reminded ourselves that we did just that with our low-bush peas earlier this year. It worked like a charm on that small scale. As a note of interest. I will tell you that when the first peas were ready to harvest, I found one pea-pod that had been eaten on. The marks were not definitive enough to twig if it was a vole or a bird, so we threw a net over the top and from that day there were no more damaged peas. We will have to do this with the strawb patches too next year because the merels will certainly get at the strawbs without netting over the top. Anyhow mate, thanks for this tip. I enjoyed hearing about the whippersnapper. It is encouraging hearing that a young person is being thoughtful in the garden. What you are doing is what we call, “de kat uit de boom kijken”. A clever strategy. BTW— I was sorry to hear that your strawb crop failed. That was interesting to hear that your first strawbs failed. You said that the first plants that you bought were bare root specimens right? I winder— how did you plant the,, with the rootball straight down, or did you spread them out like a fan?
I did spread the roots out but they looked pretty terrible. Like they had been boiled . Or sauteed. I should have just taken them back. This year I am asking other gardeners for some of their slips. I'll keep in mind your suggestion about covering the top of the patch.
Oh dear, Cayu— yes, I agree that you ought to have returned those plants if the roots did not look right to you. It sounds like those roots had been either frozen or overheated. Do you think that you will get enough slips from your co-gardeners? Fingers crossed. Meanwhile, perhaps you could look for another plant supplier or try and get new plants from the supplier that you got those bad ones from. After an explanation, they may be willing to make it good.
