[
Above: Mr Grove's sweetcorn. Please do not touch!]
STOP PRESS: APPARENTLY THERE WAS AN UPTURN IN THE AMOUNT OF VEG BEING EATEN BY THE CHILDREN IN THE SCHOOL CANTEEN DURING THE LAST ACADEMIC YEAR, AND THE STAFF THINK IT'S BECAUSE OF THE VEG GARDEN! Welcome to a new term at Belleville School.The main frustration over the summer holiday has been that the school is closed when many of the crops have been ready for harvesting, especially beans and tomatoes, but also courgettes and carrots, in fact just about everything we were growing. Fortunately
Lollo Roja has been able to harvest some beans and tomatoes for the restaurant, but nonetheless, there remains a problem of what to do in the summer when the school is closed and so many people are away. Maybe next year we should aim to have open days every Sunday morning when parents can come along and pick their own?
Here's a quick run down of successes and failures over the summer:
Failures
1.
Fennel - it looks beautiful but no bulbs have formed at all, which according to the books is normally caused by low temperatures but, given the summer we've had (decent?) I'm wondering if it might not be lack of water at crucial times. Apologies for poor picture quality - blame
Nokia!
2. The
climbing french beans were great in that they grew very quickly in great profusion, but they did tend to pod very quickly if you didn't pick them in time. Next year,
borlotti beans!
3.
Dwarf beans. Hopeless. Not sure why.
Probably my fault.
Successes:
1. Tomatoes. Very sweet orange coloured cherry toms were my favourite. Unfortunately I lost the seed packet so might not be able to grow them again.
2.
Companion planting. That's where you grow one plant in close proximity to another for their mutual benefit. In this case I grew Nasturtiums next to the climbing beans, and they were successful in attracting the
blackfly away from the tender beans which often get overwhelmed by the nasty bugs. Very green!
3.
Pumpkins. Last year they all went spongy when only a few inches
across, but it turns out we weren't watering enough. It was such a wet summer that the soil was normally wet, but because the raised beds are on top of concrete they were bone dry just
under the surface, so the thirsty pumpkins shrivelled and died. In other words I killed them! This summer I tried to give them long soaks and that seems to have done the trick.
4.
Carrots (partial success). We grew heirloom varieties, none of them orange, and although they tasted great they didn't have the modern carrots size and shape. The above the ground plant was often massive while the carrot was quite small. Modern varieties reverse those characteristics.
Also, the peppers again showed how easy they are to grown, the potaoes tasted great but were pretty small, and the strawberries are still going nicely.
But the biggest success of all was the recruiting of Evie who is going to run a veg gardening club after school every Thursday. Great news! More about that soon...
The warm September has extended the growing season and the salads and tomatoes are doing especially well. The fennel [above] looks very beautiful and smells great, but I'm not sure the heads are large enough to eat. I suspect a lack of water at a critical growing time might have reduced the bulb size somewhat.
