The Not Such Good Life – Potato Woes

Everything was going really well in the vegetable garden until it became clear that anything that we grow to eat something else as its eye on as well and is determined to get in first.

Blackfly on the Broad Beans were easily dealt with and a mouse nibbling off the pea shoots was efficiently dispatched but you just can’t see what is going on underground and almost our entire crop of potatoes has been destroyed by a critter that I had never heard of before – the wireworm.

I began the harvest just about a week ago and noticed curious holes in the tubers which under further investigation led to maggoty creatures inside and brown rot.  Everything destroyed and I know how the Irish felt now in the potato blight and famine of the 1840s.  Kim has had to go to the supermarket to get alternative supplies.  I was looking forward to at least a month of home grown produce but it is not to be.

Now I am worried about the beetroot and the carrots.

This is the total crop that I was able to salvage, not a great return on three months work…

Hopefully nothing is going to take a liking to the runner beans but at least they are above ground and I can see what is going on.

The Good Life – First Pea Crop

After I had completed the task of clearing the overgrown garden and handed it over to Kim for cultivation I retained a small plot for myself to try my hand at growing vegetables.  I have been rewarded with a first crop of peas that I have taken for mangetout.  Later I will let some develop into full peas before impatiently harvesting.