After a combination of being very busy moving house and bad weather, the growing was delayed somewhat! My partner and I had planned to grow many wonderful veggies, however we were just a bit too late for a lot of them. Not all was lost though, as there was still plenty we could grow. Towards the end of June we sowed beetroot, lettuce, carrots, french beans, tomatoes. We also obtained a young courgette plant ('Eight-Ball') and a butternut squash from the local garden centre, which were transplanted into grow bags.
Our garden is on the small side, and being a rented property, there is less scope for having things just the way we want. However there are still opportunities to grow your own, using pots and grow bags on the patio. Grow bags along a south-facing fence contain tomatoes, courgette and squash. Cut and come lettuces are doing really well in a somewhat high-tech 'self-watering' trough. A borrowed patch at the parents' house has been sown up with more veg!
We were a bit worried as our tomatoes developed some yellow-brown patches, which we feared were blight! However, there are many reasons for discoloration of leaves with plants like tomatoes. In this case, continual heavy showers had meant that the grow bag used to plant out the tomatoes was sodden for a long period. With no chance to feed them during the damp weather, the yellowing of the leaves was more likely due to a mineral deficiency. A liquid feed squeezed in between the showers has improved the plants' growth.
Best wishes
Helen and Stephen
