Harvesting le uce seeds
This week I'm harvesting lettuce seed, nurturing tomatoes and zapping pests!
Ilike to grow lots of my own lettuce in the garden, and have several varieties, from ‘Little Gem’, which is found readily in every seed catalogue, to ‘Bunyard’s Matchless’, which is only available from Garden Organic’s Heritage Seed Library seed list.
This greeny bronzeleaved romaine variety has a lovely flavour and a real crunch to it, thanks to the juicy mid-rib of each leaf, and I’ve decided to save my own seed from the plants I have.
When growing lettuce it’s always best to sow little and often, otherwise you get swamped with too many plants to eat and they
begin to bolt (run to seed). This is exactly what you want if you’re saving seed; the plants begin to elongate and put on a large flower spike that’s several times bigger than the original plant and the leaves take on a bitter flavour. Before flowers open, remove any other variety of lettuce that may be flowering or the plants may cross-pollinate and you don’t want that if you’re saving seed (unless you want to try to create your own unique variety!). I’ll keep you posted on how to save the seed once the plants have flowered. While outside, it’s time to nip the top off outdoor cordon tomatoes, such as ‘Crimson Crush’, to make them concentrate on ripening their fruit before the weather gets too cold. It also means they won’t grow too tall and become susceptible to wind damage.
After my disaster with strawberries last year involving a cheeky squirrel – I called him Dave – eating most of the fruit, and vine weevil killing half the plants, I decided to grow new plants in buckets in the greenhouse away from any problems: or so I thought!
I’ve noticed there are holes and raggedy notches (different to the more circular notches made by leafcutter bees) in the leaves on the citrus and peach tree, which are in the greenhouse. This means only one thing – vine weevil have moved inside!
I’ve given the strawberry plants a tug to see if they’re being eaten from below by the grubs of the weevil, but they seem healthy and don’t feel loose, so it looks like it's just adult weevils in there that are munching the leaves. Nevertheless, I’m going to treat all the plants under cover with vine weevil nematodes.
Normally you have to buy nematodes online and keep them in the fridge, using them within a week and mixing the powder into water to create the solution for watering onto affected plants. However, I’m using the new Neudorff vine weevil killer that you can leave in the shed until you need to use it. Instead of weighing out the powder, you just pop a ‘tea bag’ in a watering can and let it brew for a few minutes before watering affected plants. Keep the plants moist for a few days after application to allow the nematodes to move around in the soil with ease and find vine weevil larvae. I’m hoping this will stop problems on my strawberries before they start!