October in the Community garden

Welcome to the October work to be done or finished off in the community garden. Try to get any work done while the weather if good and remember to keep on top of the work load. Start to leave seeds out of the wild birds and be careful as you go clearing up debris in the garden you are not disturbing any hibernating Hedgehogs etc. 
 Willie

Vegetable & Fruit October Growing Guide

October is really the last of the hectic months on the vegetable plot. There's little to sow and plant but still a fair amount to harvest and store away to eat through winter. This is the month when the first frosts usually arrive so killing off all but the hardy plants.

Sowing & Planting in October on the Vegetable Plot

Over-wintered broad beans can go in from the middle of the month to provide an early crop next year. Whilst they're very hardy, they don't like sitting in water so on heavy soils they can be a gamble and you may prefer to just sow early on next year. The last sowing of beet leaf spinach can be made early in the month and you may be able to just fit in some Chinese cabbage. October is the last chance for planting out Japanese onion sets. These are hardy, short-daylight onions so will bulb up about a month earlier next year than the normal onions but they don't store as well so go for a smaller quantity rather than larger. It's worth protecting them with a cloche or netting until well established as they hold a magnetic attraction for pigeons who seem to delight in pulling them from the ground and throwing them to the side. You can plant out garlic in October but generally it's a November job. However, if the weather turns nasty then you'll have one less task to do outside.

General Garden Tasks for October

There's not a lot to do except for keeping weeds in check with the established crops. If you've got Brussels sprouts it's worth checking they're firm in the ground as wind-rock breaks the tiny hairs on the roots that take in the nutrients. Earthing up a few cm around the stems and treading in or staking should be enough. In very windy areas a wind break can save the day.

If the leaves are looking a little yellow, apply a high nitrogen liquid feed around each plant and this should perk them up enough to ensure good firm sprouts for Christmas. With other brassicas, remove any yellowed leaves as they are of no use to the plant and will encourage botrytis to develop.

If you've a green manure crop like mustard mature, now is the time to dig it in. Generally find mustard produces a lot of foliage which can be cut with shears about a 30cm off the ground. Compost the cut foliage and dig in the rest.

As ground becomes vacant, you can dig it over, with heavy clay soils just leave the clods unbroken and the freezing / thawing action of winter weather will break them up, giving you a fine tilt to work with in the spring. Spread manure or compost over the surface and leave for the worms to drag down into the ground or lime if appropriate.

October and November are good months for serious digging. The deeper the fertile soil, the better crops that can be had. Double digging where you remove a trench and then break up the sub-soil with a fork prior to adding a good layer of manure or compost and then place the soil from the next trench on top will greatly improve your soil. With light deep soils that don't benefit from annual digging, sow a green manure like field beans that will hold the nutrients in the soil over winter until spring when you dig them in to add both humus and nutrients.

Now is the time to concentrate on your compost making. The last of the bulk foliage should be available to build a proper heap rather than a waste pile. Emptying one bin into another, layering with lime and nitrogen rich manure as it builds, will ensure decomposition gets off to a good start.

Consider where you intend to plant your runner beans and start a bean trench, digging it out and lining with newspapers (six sheets thick) before adding compostable kitchen waste, lawn clippings etc. and covering with soil.

Fruit

This is a good month to prune your blackcurrants, redcurrants and gooseberries. Your raspberries and blackberries need cutting back, tying in etc. and these early winter months are ideal for planting out new stock. Make sure the ground is well prepared and add a good 500gr of bone meal per plant to the base of the planting hole, forked in. This will slowly release its nitrogen over the next year or two giving stronger plants earlier

October Greenhouse Tasks

If you've still got crops, open the vents on fine days to avoid developing a muggy atmosphere which encourages fungal diseases. As tomatoes etc. finish, clear them out and wash any old pots etc. before putting them away. If you can, give the house a good clean with a little detergent and disinfectant and a scrubbing brush. Clean glass will allow more light through in the dark days and cleaning the frame will remove pests looking for a good spot to over-winter. Once clean you can insulate it. Bubble wrap is good or heat sheets will do the job. Sow a hardy lettuce like Arctic King and grow in your greenhouse border to give you a salad whatever the weather.

Harvest

Any remaining main crop potatoes should be ready. When the haulm (leaves) starts dying back you cut it off and leave the potatoes for a couple of weeks. This will make the skins set and hopefully prevent any stray blight spores from the haulm infecting your tubers. Wait for a sunny dry day and dig up the potatoes, brushing off excess soil and letting them dry off before storing in hessian or paper sacks in a frost free, dark shed.

The last of the beans should be picked now, compost the foliage but leaving the roots with their nitrogen full nodules in the soil will act as a fertiliser.

Main crop carrots should be dug up to be stored in sand or peat through the winter but leave the parsnips in the ground as they'll be sweeter after a frost.

Drumhead cabbages that are ready should be harvested. They'll keep remarkably well in a frost-free shed but be aware that a slug that may be lurking under the leaves. Sprinkling the outside with salt will deter them from eating away through the winter.

September 2013 in SCR community Garden

The weather is so far so good at the start of the month, lets hope it keeps up to get the best and last of the summer crops.
Enjoy the month
Willie
September is the end of summer although we're often lucky to have an Indian summer with blue skies and sunshine, nothing is certain with the weather. The bulk of the harvest comes home now and as crops come out the plot begins to empty

Harvest

The main crop potatoes should be ready now. To repeat August's advice regarding harvesting potatoes:

When you harvest your potatoes take care to remove all the tubers. Any left will not only sprout next year and becomes a weed but will also be a reservoir for disease and potato blight spores. It's often worth forking over a few days after harvesting potatoes because more seem to miraculously appear.

If blight has struck your potatoes the best method to preserve the crop is to remove the haulm and dispose of it then leave the potatoes in the ground for a fortnight or longer to stop the spores getting onto the tubers.

It's best to harvest potatoes fairly early in the day, rinse them off as they come from the ground and then leave in the sunlight for a day to thoroughly dry off and harden the skins before storing.

Sort carefully and place perfect specimens into Hessian or paper sacks in a cool dark but frost free place. Damaged tubers should be used first before they have a chance to rot and spread their rot to the rest of the sack.

It's worthwhile to empty the sacks after a few weeks or a month and check that there are no potatoes going off. Discard these before they rot the sack. You might like to pop a few slug pellets into the sacks as well. It's amazing how the slugs can appear no matter how careful you are. If you are concerned about slug pellets, remember these are in store and present no risk to wildlife.

You may well have reasonably sized parsnips now but they will stay perfectly happy in the ground and do taste better after they have had a frost on them.

The runner beans and French beans will be continuing to produce and the last of the peas should be coming in. Compost the foliage of the peas but leave the roots in the ground as the nodules on them contain nitrogen.

The harvest will be in full swing and in addition to the above you should have:

Beetroot        Cabbage        Carrots        Cauliflowers        Courgettes        Cucumbers        Globe Artichokes        Kale        Kohlrabi        Lettuce

Leeks        Marrows        Onions        Pumpkins        Radishes        Spring Onions        Spinach        Sweetcorn        Tomatoes        Turnips

 

From the greenhouse you should be picking aubergines, chilli and sweet peppers as well as cucumbers and tomatoes.

If you grow fruit then the picking should be in full swing there as well:

Apples, pears, plums, peaches from the trees, blackberries and raspberries from the canes and strawberries from the bed.

 

Sowing, Planting and Cultivating

Sowing

There's not a great deal to sow now but surprisingly it's the right time to sow winter lettuces such as Arctic King for spring harvests.

The other salad crop is the winter hardy spring onion. I'd suggest White Lisbon but ensure it is the winter hardy version.

 

Green Manure

Early September is the time to sow green manures. If you do not need to dig over your plot as you do with heavy soils or intend to spread manure on a patch then following on the last of a crop with a green manure is a great idea.

The first benefit is that the green manure will hold onto soil fertility that would otherwise be washed out by the winter rains. In fact, sowing a legume such as Winter Tares will fix nitrogen from the air.

Secondly, they will prevent weed growth so you will have less work to do.

Finally they help improve the soil structure. In the spring you just need to dig over and allow them to rot down for a few weeks.

One of the best green manures for winter growth is Hungarian grazing rye. It continues to grow, albeit slowly, in cold weather and should be around 15" tall come the spring from an early September sowing. Not only will you have a lush mass of foliage but it also produces a mass of roots that will provide humus for bacterial breakdown.

Planting Out

Your spring cabbage plants can be planted out now and over wintering (Japanese) onion sets can go in for an early onion harvest.

You can plant out garlic as well although I prefer to plant it out later in the year.

Cultivating

Keep feeding your tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. It's not really worthwhile feeding other plants at this time of year as they are nearly finished and the nutrients are best saved for the spring. Keep the side shoots in check on the tomatoes.

Fruit

Tidy up the summer fruiting raspberries, cutting off the canes that have fruited and tying in the new shoots that will bear next year.

The summer fruiting strawberries can be attended to now as well. Cut off the foliage about 1" from the ground, clearing and weeding as you go. Any runners can be planted up to replace 3 year old plants that are best replaced now.

General Tasks

Keep an eye on your brassicas for butterfly eggs and caterpillars; these will most probably be under the leaves. The greenhouse pests should be declining but keep an eye out if the weather is good.

Making Compost

If you've not already done so, empty your compost bins. The compost that is ready can be spread on the ground and the compost only partially rotted returned to the bin to finish off.

You will probably have quite a bit of foliage ready to compost and building a heap properly will help the transformation from green waste to valuable compost. At the base of the heap place woody material, sweetcorn stalks etc to allow some airflow up into the heap. Next place a six inch layer of green material and add some sulphate of ammonia or dried blood to add nitrogen. Just a small sprinkling is sufficient; about 50g per square metre (2oz per square yard) is about right.

Another layer of green material but this time lightly sprinkle with lime to keep the pH up. Repeat the process and top off with a piece of old carpet or some plastic sheeting to stop it getting too wet in the rain and to keep the heat in.

The heap should heat up after a few days and be ready to turn in four or six weeks. The smaller the particles the more surface area they have relative to weight and the faster they will decompose. If you have a shredder, this will be ideal but otherwise cut things up with shears, crush things like brassica stems and they will go down much faster.

August in the community garden 2013

Vegetable & Fruit August Growing Guide

August with a little luck brings us the best of the summer weather but being the traditional holiday month it can be hard to keep on top of the vegetable plot with a been  away even if a friend can be persuaded to water as required  

Sweet corn in August

 The sweet corn is as high as an elephant's eye and soon the cobs will be ripe and ready.

Sowing & Planting in August on the Vegetable Plot 

Direct Sowing :  There are still quite a few things you should be sowing in August. Spring Cabbage and Chinese cabbage, which is a late crop as well as hardy lettuce.  Although we think of lettuce as a summer crop, it is a surprisingly hardy plant and under cloche and in the greenhouse can easily be available for a Boxing day salad rather than some tasteless import from sunnier climes. Sow spring onions like White Lisbon winter hardy which will grow, albeit slowly, to add zing to that salad along with some fast growing radishes.  Late spinach can be sown in August along with a last sowing of kohlrabi and turnips.

Planting Out : Plant out the savoy cabbages and cauliflowers to grow on for the earliest crop as well as hardy kales. 

Cultivation, Pests & Problems : Your runner beans will be at the top of the canes now so pinch out their growing tip to encourage bushier growth below. Pick all runner, climbing and dwarf beans regularly except for the haricot varieties such as Borlotti where we want the bean rather than pod for table. 

Stop tomato plants now to encourage fruit to swell and ripen. Stopping is the process of cutting off the growing tip so the plant's energy is not diverted into foliage from fruit. Keep your tomato side shoots in check, you want tomatoes not masses of foliage. Ensure they are watered regularly, drying out prevents the plant from taking up sufficient calcium and the deficit causes blossom end rot. Keep on top of the pests. Aphids and Blackfly are a particular problem in the greenhouse although they are certainly about in the open plot as well. You can control them with pesticides or just wash them off many plants with a strong jet of water.  A squirt with soft soap solution will do no harm to the plants and will reduce the numbers down by stopping the pests breathing. In the greenhouse the biological controls are most effective and don't forget the traditional sticky yellow cards which attract the whitefly. 

Fruit : If we do get a prolonged dry spell, don't forget that that fruit bushes and trees need watering. Swelling apples and currants need water as much as leafy vegetables. Give a good soaking rather than little sprinkle's that encourage surface rooting. It's the last chance for summer pruning. Watch out for overladen plums and damsons. If needed you can support branches by inserting a length of 2x1 notched at the top (like an old fashioned line prop) to support the branch or tie to the stem with robust twine. Keep the base of trees weed and grass free, mulch to keep in moisture and add fertility with garden compost. Protect autumn raspberries now with netting from the birds before the fruits arrive and the birds eat them.  

In the Greenhouse / Polytunnel 

Ensure good ventilation. It can get incredibly hot in a greenhouse with strong sun and scorch your plants. You should also consider shading the house either with blinds or films or with a shading wash. Keep pinching off the side shoots with your tomatoes and stop them a few leaves after a truss by pinching out the growing stem.  keep an eye out for pests such as aphids, whitefly, red spider mite. If you are subject to attack by these pests it is worth checking out biological controls as these are perfectly safe to use and, used correctly, more effective than traditional chemical controls. 

I would suggest using the organic alternatives as a mainstream choice

July in the Community Garden 2013

Hi all,
            Hope you are all keeping well and busy in the community garden. Please see July of what to do in the garden/community plot.
Enjoy

Vegetable & Fruit July Growing Guide

July is usually one of the hottest and driest months so a lot of time may be spent watering. You can reduce water loss and so save yourself some time. Mulching with a layer of organic matter will help preserve moisture but may encourage slugs so you will need to take action against them. Another good method of preventing water loss is to hoe. This not only kills the weeds but breaks up the top of the soil stopping water from being drawn to the surface by capillary action and evaporating.

Those early potatoes should be coming out of the ground now and although they do not store as well as the maincrop varieties they will store until finished.

Sowing & Planting in July on the Vegetable Plot

Direct Sowing

In dry weather draw your drill and water it well prior to sowing and then just water with a fine rose after to settle the seeds in.

In really hot spells you might need to water young seedlings early morning and late evening to keep them going.

Although the sowing season is coming to a close there are still things to sow in July

Spring Cabbage  Chicory  Chinese cabbage   Kohlrabi   Lettuce   Peas   French Beans   Beetroot   Carrots   Radishes

Planting Out

If they've not gone out yet, it's time to plant out your leeks. Just dib a hole about 150mm (6") deep and drop the leek into the hole. Water it in and the job's done. Don't follow old advice about trimming the tops and roots, it has no beneficial effect and is probably harmful. You don't need to fill the holes with soil, enough will wash in with watering and rain. The reason you plant in a hole is to blanch the stem.

Brassicas from pots can go out as well: broccoli, calabrese, Brussels sprouts and cabbage

Green Manures

To follow on the first early potatoes with leeks but otherwise a green manure can avoid bare ground which is just going to grow weeds. Mustard is fast growing and is supposed to confuse the potato eel worm into breeding at the wrong time, hence a follow on to potatoes. It is a brassica so don't use it if you suffer from club root.

Another fast growing green manure crop you can use is French beans. Even if you have enough beans for the kitchen, the plant produces a fair amount of leaf and stem plus the roots, as with all legumes, have nodules containing bacteria that fix nitrogen from the atmosphere.

Cultivation, Pests & Problems

The same advice as for June applies to watering, slugs & snails and butterflies. If you've not netted your brassicas against butterflies (and probably if you have!) then I guarantee you'll have missed some butterfly eggs.

It really is worth double checking, look close to the stem, and getting any caterpillars that may have hatched out. There's little left in the gardener's kit bag in the way of sprays nowadays so pick them off into a bucket and drown them. A major cause of poor crops with potatoes is poor nutrition. They are a very greedy plant and a boost now will pay a dividend in tubers. A feed balanced as for tomatoes is ideal. If you make your own feed from comfrey, this is ideal.

Keep on top of the weeds; it really is far easier to hoe them as small seedlings than as grown plants. Even if you cannot see any weeds, hoeing will actually be killing tiny seedlings you have not noticed and will be helping reduce moisture loss

With broad beans you can pinch out the tops which are most attractive to blackfly. Another 'trick' is to plant some nasturtiums which attract blackfly. You can then pull the nasturtiums and their blackfly.

Keep your onions well weeded and don't forget to feed them as well to get the best possible crop. As they mature they need to dry out, so don't over water if at all. Keeping the weeds off allows air to circulate; the last thing you want is a muggy atmosphere around the onions developing moulds.

Fruit

If we do get a prolonged dry spell, don't forget that that fruit bushes and trees need watering. Swelling apples and currants need water as much as leafy vegetables. Give a good soaking rather than little sprinkles that encourage surface rooting.

Finish thinning apples, pears and plums etc. if needed. It's the right time for summer pruning as well. Keep the base of trees weed and grass free, mulch to keep in moisture and add fertility with garden compost.

Pick soft fruits now assuming you've kept the birds away with netting or a cage and they've left you some. Don't forget to use strawberry runners to grow new plants and remove unwanted runners so the plants retain strength. Grub up and replace in another spot strawberries after 3 or 4 years cropping.

In the Greenhouse / Polytunnel

Ensure good ventilation. It can get incredibly hot in a greenhouse with strong sun and scorch your plants. You should also consider shading the house either with blinds or films or with a shading wash

Keep pinching off the side shoots with your tomatoes and keep an eye out for pests such as aphids, whitefly, and red spider mite. If you are subject to attack by these pests it is worth checking out biological controls as these are perfectly safe to use and, used correctly, more effective than traditional chemical controls.

Events this week

The Producers host a series of events

TUESDAY 25 June 2pm

Walk and Talk - Tuesday 25 June at 2pm: meet at The Barge pub, Portobello – exploring and looking at the history of Dolphins Barn war time allotments and current food projects

Dot Fine of the SCR Community Garden and the Walk &Talk Program that meets at the Barge Pub, Portobello will lead a Walk and Talk with local  historian Michael Keogh. The local history of Dolphins Barn and Rialto will be discussed with visits to the sites of Dolphins Barn wartime allotments, St. Andrews Community Centre and the SCR Community Garden.

WEDNESDAY 26 June 11am

Seed and Plant Swop - Wednesday 26 June 11am: meet at studio 468, St Andrews Community Centre, Rialto, Dublin 8 This will be led by Kaethe Burt O'Dea who initiated the Sitric Road Community Garden where she has been seed saving over the last five years. Kaethe runs The LIFELINE Project, a 'living laboratory' exploring the collaborative development of urban healthcare design and planning to support community engagement and active lifestyle choices.

FRIDAY 28 June 10.30am

Forage Walk - Friday 28 June 10.30 am: identifying edible and medicinal plants growing wild in and around Dolphins Barn and Rialto Identifying edible and medicinal plants growing wild in and around Dolphin's Barn and Rialto. This will be led by Pears. He has formed a vegan cooking collective Ruuts and Shuuts and runs The Kindness Cafe in Exchange Gallery.

Common Ground and studio 468 presents

The Producers

 

 You are invited to The Producers curated and hosted by curator Vaari Claffey (Gracelands) and artists Jeanette Doyle (the food thing) and Seoidín O’Sullivan (South Circular Community Garden).

The Producers will present curated film screenings, artworks, readings and serve locally grown and foraged food dishes.

On June 29^th guests are invited to arrive at studio 468 in St Andrew's Community Centre, Rialto, Dublin 8 by 9pm and to kindly make their way to the South Circular Road Community Food Garden by 10.30pm.

Work in  St Andrew’s Community Centre will include installations bySeoidín O’Sullivan and Rhona Byrne and a screening of Asparagus Balletby UK artists Pil and Galia Kollectiv together with an elaborate presentation of foodstuffs prepared by the food thing (led by Jeanette Doyle)  with produce foraged locally and from the South Circular Community Garden. In the Community Garden a programme of artists films including George Kuchar and Margaret Tait will be screened alongside a series of artworks by Garrett Phelan, Lucy Andrews, Oisin Byrne and Marie Farrington and accompanied by food prepared, presented and served by the food thing.   

Please RSVP by Wednesday 26^th June to: info@commonground.ie or 01-7078766
For more information on The Producers please go to the following weblinks:

Common Ground (CommonGroundDub) on Twitter

Studio 468 - Dublin, Ireland - Local Business | Facebook

The Producers 2013

Common Ground

Map link to St Andrews Community Centre  http://goo.gl/maps/pyPtD

 

The Producers is the first in a series of six studio 468X10 awards that mark & celebrate studio 468’s  first 10 years in Rialto, Dublin.

June in the Community Garden

Hi all,
         Hope you are all enjoying the very good weather we are having this fine June. Here are some things to do in the community garden this June,enjoy.

Regards
Willie

Community Garden & Vegetable Gardening in June

We're also moving towards the longest day, June 21st being the summer solstice so there is plenty of daylight to let you get on with things.

There is a lot to do in June but the rewards for our efforts are coming in the harvest.

Harvest

Salad crops should be available, lettuce, spring onion, radish etc., summer cabbage and early carrots. With carrots the later thinning’s can provide a great addition to a salad or just steamed with a cooked meal.

The early potatoes will be coming in this month. Because your potatoes will be going from ground to pan in a matter of minutes you will discover a truly wonderful flavour.

Beetroot, young turnips and summer spinach may all be welcome fresh additions to your diet.

The early peas could well be cropping in June, especially in the south

Sowing, Planting and Cultivating

Cultivating

As with May, we really need to keep on top of the weeds. Hoeing them off as small seedlings will make the job far easier than waiting for them to grow and send their roots down. Hoeing is best done on a dry day so that the weeds do not have a chance to recover. Don't forget to sharpen your hoe before you start and frequently as you use it. Keeping a small sharpening stone or file in your pocket will make this more convenient.

Continue thinning out your carrots, parsnips, beetroot etc. As I said above, later carrot thinning’s can provide a tender and tasty addition to a meal.

Water when required. Your best measuring instrument for water is your finger. If the top of the soil looks dry, insert your finger into the soil. If it's dry at the tip, then you need to water.

Don't just sprinkle a few drops on the surface, it probably won't penetrate and do any good. Far better to give a good soaking less frequently that will get to the roots of your crops.

In very dry weather, keeping the surface friable by hoeing will help keep the water from getting to the surface by capillary action and then evaporating away. It also helps water soak in when you do get some rain.

Planting

You should be able to plant out brassicas now. Broccoli and calabrese, Brussels sprouts, summer cabbage.

If you have started beans in pots, both runner and French these can go into the outside too. Leeks may well be ready to move to their final position. Ideally they want to be about pencil thickness. Don't follow the old guidance to trim the leaves and roots when transplanting leeks. It has been proven to be of no benefit and is counter-productive. Celery can go out now as well.

Outdoor tomatoes can go to their final position now. When moving plants from greenhouse to outdoors it is a good idea to condition them to the move. Take them out in the day and put them back at night for a few days or move from greenhouse to coldframe. This avoids shocking the plant by a sudden and drastic change in climate.

Sowing

There is a lot to sow this month and with many crops you can sow one set and then a few weeks later re-sow to give you a succession of fresh vegetables at the peak of perfection. In dry weather it is a good idea to soak your seed drill before sowing and then just water with a fine rose after.

• French and Runner Beans   Maincrop peas   Beetroot   Carrots   Turnips   Swedes   Cauliflowers   Chicory   Endive   Kohlrabi   Sweetcorn   Squash   Courgette and Marrows   Cucucumber

Beetroot, French beans, carrots, kohlrabi, peas, lettuce, endive, radish should be sown at intervals throughout the summer months to provide a constant supply Successional sowing ensures you always have fresh crops at the peak for your table.

In the greenhouse

Keep pinching off the side shoots with your tomatoes and keep an eye out for pests such as aphids, whitefly, red spider mite. If you are subject to attack by these pests it is worth checking out biological controls as these are perfectly safe to use and, used correctly, more effective than traditional chemical controls. Many of the chemical controls of the past are no longer available anyway so the organic alternatives are now the mainstream choice.

Fruit

Make sure your fruiting plants have sufficient water when the fruit is swelling. This is critical to a good crop.

Thin out plums and apples in June. Better to have one reasonable apple than three miniature marbles. Nature naturally tends towards this and sheds excess fruit. This is known as the 'June Drop'. It's best to thin out after this.

In the greenhouse

Keep pinching off the side shoots with your tomatoes and keep an eye out for pests such as aphids, whitefly, red spider mite. If you are subject to attack by these pests it is worth checking out biological controls as these are perfectly safe to use and, used correctly, more effective than traditional chemical controls. Many of the chemical controls of the past are no longer available anyway so the organic alternatives are now the mainstream choice.

Fruit

Make sure your fruiting plants have sufficient water when the fruit is swelling. This is critical to a good crop.

Thin out plums and apples in June. Better to have one reasonable apple than three miniature marbles. Nature naturally tends towards this and sheds excess fruit. This is known as the 'June Drop'. It's best to thin out after this.

General Tasks

The infantry of slugs and snails are attacking at ground level so take action to keep them down and the air force of birds are coming from the skies to eat your crops. Don't forget the netting.

The butterflies are about now as well. Beautiful as they are, check the undersides of your brassica leaves for the yellow or white eggs that will hatch into caterpillars and devastate the plant. You can squash them, wipe or wash them off easily at this stage.