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June
9th June
The plants are all growing well as can be seen from
Fig 1.
The beans and peas picked & removed from my 10 x 8
greenhouse the shelving installed to stand my restricted plants. In
their 7” pots they seem to be spaced ok and should not be too close
together I will have to see as I have not grown this many restricted
plants it’s also the first year I’ve had this greenhouse. For the
shelving I sourced some crates from the local farm shop and eight pieces
of 10ft x 4” x 2” which I treated with some clear wood preservative. I
covered the ground with weed suppressing matting and I think it looks
quite tidy Fig 2. With this
greenhouse not being very tall its idle as this shelving is not too high
unlike the large house where the bench is just one height but the roof
is 12” higher. I did get another magnetic screen for the door and
covered the roof vent with fleece. I tied the plants that were tall
enough to the cane in their pot today. Made a platform out of two
buckets and sat on a little stool which enabled me to work from to save
bending over too far Fig 3. When
doing this I removed any shoots that had appeared extra to the main
shoot a couple of these had some roots which I was able to pot up for
extra plants. With the multi stemmed plants I’ve been round and started
tying each stem and fitting a cross cane to support the centre stem
Fig 4. while removing all the flower
buds taking care not to remove the growing tip which can easily be done
by mistake.. Fed all plants with miracle grow also treated all plants
with provado vine weevil killer. I’ve been looking for damage to leaves
but so far have seen none although have seen a couple of moths which I
disturbed when moving the plants. There have been mild nights so doors
left open getting some air in but when very wet and cold have kept the
doors closed. You can see this year’s cuttings in
Fig 5. along with some of last year’s
very slow cutting tubers just starting in the back ground.
Earlier in the year I commented on painting the outside of the
greenhouses with white paint .Well this was a disaster with all the
heavy rain it was washed off leaving the glass nice and clear to let the
sunshine through. Luckily I had some fleece which I was able to put
temporarily inside the house to protect the plants until I was able to
get some shading paint. This time I bought some shading paint over the
internet which goes clear when it gets wet using half of a one litre tin
to cover my 20ft & 10 ft. Greenhouses. Most of the white paint had
stopped on the side glass which hadn’t had the rains full force so
didn’t need to apply to those areas again.
15th June I’ve been round all the plants and
removed all the buds and fed all with phostrogen also gave them several
feeds over the leaves. Continued tying the main stems to the canes
inserted when I potted them on into final pots, adjusting if becoming
too tight with the ever increasing size of the stems. I don’t like the
idea of pushing canes into the pots and damaging the roots which have
done their best to grow and fill the pot.
21st June Gave all the plants a feed with
phosphorous as read in one our bulletins it gives the plants a boost.
Needed to put a couple of plants in the beds outside and made a temp.
bench to stand several which gives the benches in the large greenhouse
over to the multi stemmed plants. The Nixol transparent shading paint
seems to be doing a good job and has stopped on also does go clear when
raining as it says on the tin. Removed several panes of glass in both
greenhouses Fig 6 & 7 as can be seen
covered the openings with netting to keep the bugs away. One final
picture of the first tomatoes ready for picking
Fig 8 taken on 23rd June.
28th June This week I will pick half of the buds and
next week the 3rd July the other half to give a bit of
difference in the timing. Made myself a size gauge
Fig 9 to hold up against the buds makes the job a bit
easier. Last year several of my plants were past their best so I’m going
to shorten the time on half the plants between picking buds and show
date. Not actually sure what the weather will do as usual only time will
tell. |
