2024 - What I did today

I pruned some more tomato leaves where they were shading trusses and took some cucumber leaves off too, did some watering in the gh and harvested. Only had a couple of hours in the garden but achieved something at least.

Tomatoes don't need sun to ripen, if that's the reason you're taking leaves off.

A bit of both, unshading a few and giving the plants a bit more air around the lower areas , taking of some browning leaves and giving me some room to walk in the gh.  Nothing too drastic. If they don't need sun, why are we told by pundits to unshate trusses, I wonder?

Pundits are often wrong and tend to parrot what they already know. There's a lot of old wive's tales and incorrect gardening advice out there, adding crocks for drainage at the bottom of pots is a very common one. I think if they consulted horticulturalists, scientists or professional growers, they wouldn't come out with so much guff. In very warm parts of the USA, growers prefer to keep leaves on as much as they can because they shade the fruit and prevent sunscald.

Today has been all about sorting the area and access around my new garden tap. So lots more strimming. Digging out the ditch in a few places to get the drainage pipe sitting level. Putting drainage pipe in. Realising I’d done it in the wrong place and did it all again further up the ditch! Easy mistake to make. I was working on the ditch directly in front on the tap ( which will be the back of the big tunnel). When I should have been working on the ditch about 5m to my right ( path between tunnels). Mostly filled in a little pointless ditch that didn’t go anywhere. With the stones and mud I dug from the main ditch. Picked first barrow load of stones to start covering the pipe.

I keep forgetting. Yesterday I rigged up a hammock for my squash

I pruned some more tomato leaves where they were shading trusses and took some cucumber leaves off too, did some watering in the gh and harvested. Only had a couple of hours in the garden but achieved something at least.

Tomatoes don't need sun to ripen, if that's the reason you're taking leaves off.

A bit of both, unshading a few and giving the plants a bit more air around the lower areas , taking of some browning leaves and giving me some room to walk in the gh.  Nothing too drastic. If they don't need sun, why are we told by pundits to unshate trusses, I wonder?

Pundits are often wrong and tend to parrot what they already know. There's a lot of old wive's tales and incorrect gardening advice out there, adding crocks for drainage at the bottom of pots is a very common one. I think if they consulted horticulturalists, scientists or professional growers, they wouldn't come out with so much guff. In very warm parts of the USA, growers prefer to keep leaves on as much as they can because they shade the fruit and prevent sunscald.

How right you are. I did a bit of googling and it's the ethylene that ripens not the sun, just as well today as  it's been overcast most of the day.

Windowsill Wednesday - watered & pruned the house plants.
Weeded VP3 and cleared a lot of previously cut brambles from Strip 1.
Then it rained........

Weeded VP4 and attacked more brambles in Strip 1.
Planted out some CFBs (in VP1) - no idea what variety.
Cut back some overhanging branches on a ?Mirabel plum that has only fruited once, a few years ago. Its on borrowed time!

Tied up some tomato trusses on my hanging basket tomatoes. The had snapped but still growing fine. So just a bit of support so they don’t split off the main stem completely. That’s it weather has been dreadful. And a trip to the vets for Breeze. Nothing serious, thankfully.

Covered the bed that’s been dug ready in the cottage garden. With whatever I could find to suppress weeds. Don’t see me filling it any time soon. Started doing a bit of levelling of the ground next to new tap in veg garden. Stone picking to fill in ditch. Harvested some stuff.

Yesterday played musical compost boxes - without the music.
As you know I acquired a hexagonal compost bin from next door and this has been lying around in bits waiting for a space. This is the twin to one I already have so I thought it only fitting they should sit together in aesthetic harmony. I emptied the black square manure bin next to the existing hex with a view to traipsing it to the top to sit by the three big compost bins but first needed to move another smallish black square one to the left to give it room. I had to hack away at some dead fir tree, move bags of shreddings and sieved soil and rake a level area to fit it in. That's all done and today's job is to prepare the space for hex no. 2. There's a load of stones (nothing to compete with SC's stones though), lemon balm, comfrey and overgrown privet cuttings to deal with first.

The twins