17/5/26 - Raspberries, Blueberries and Moles
Good evening and welcome to this weekends allotment diary update. This week has seen a slow down in happenings on the plot. A majority of things are in the ground and the things that haven't quite got there yet are still playing catch up. It's been a cooler week with a touch of air frost right at the start of the week but also with intermittent rain too which has meant that I haven't needed to go to the plot every day. Right at the start of the week, I had to do a quick visit to deploy some horticultural fleece over the tomatoes that had only been transplanted out the weekend before. Fingers crossed, that cold weather has now properly gone, and the fleece was removed on Friday, with a forecast for the next week seeing day time temperatures returning to the low to mid 20's and overnight temps sneaking occasionally into double digits. So, what of this weekend? Let's get stuck in.
In recent posts, you will have seen that the raspberry canes bought towards the end of last year as when the plants entered their dormant stage haven't faired very well at all. I bought 5 bare root canes of the variety Polka, from Roots Plants, a mail order company here in the UK. They were planted out exactly as instructed, but for some reason, only a single plant has shown any signs of putting on growth which is extremely disappointing. Early signs were encouraging with some growth being shown on at least 4 of the canes in early spring but that has quickly died back with only a single plant showing signs of life.
As it happens, a recent episode of Beechgrove showed what you should expect from autumn fruiting raspberries, in terms of root growth and development, so I carefully dug up 2 canes and inspected the root ball. I found that in both cases, there was absolutely no change or signs of development since the day I put them in the ground. Unfortunately, that means that I have had to call that a failure which leaves me a raspberry bed with only one plant in it.
On Saturday, we made our way to Raglan garden centre for a look around, cake and coffee (because that's what you do at a garden centre) and to look for some potted plants. Potted raspberry canes are quite expensive for what they are, especially when compared to bare root options, but having being burned by that once, it was time to find some plants that were at least showing signs of life. Not only raspberry canes, but also blueberries too! Following our visit, we came away with 2 autumn fruiting raspberry plants and one blueberry plant.
That afternoon, planting commenced, with Raspberry Autumn Bliss and Raspberry Heritage being planted up in the bed. In between them, the one remaining Raspberry Polka plant that has shown signs of life was left in the middle. The 2 remaining polka canes I have left in the ground just in case they come on late, but if there is no sign of growth from them in the coming weeks, they too will be removed.
Only when I was preparing to plant up the blueberry plant did I read the label and realise that we actually have the wrong type of soil for planting those plants on the allotment. Seeing that they need an acidic soil, we went to another garden centre this morning to buy some ericaceous compost and have the plant set in a 20 or 30 litre potato bucket. Though a blueberry, this fruit is very much not blue due to the variety being called Pink Champagne. It's a variety bred in the US and should give us fruit in it's first year.
Way from the berries, things have also moved on in the mini polytunnel. Over the last couple of weeks, I have been preparing the tunnel for the season by watering it down several times a week. I've also been keeping some spare plants in there, along with the last remaining plants waiting to go into their new home. First thing was to give away the last of the spare plants. I have needed to use a number of my spares this year and I have also used many of them in the spares bed, so I only had 7 plants to put on the sharing bench. They were made up of a couple of squash plants, aubergine plants and some pepper plants. Within half hour, some of them had already been taken and by this morning's visit, they were all gone which was pleasing.
A couple of weeks ago, I potted on some watermelon seedlings. Since then, they have stayed in the mini polytunnel and have continued to grow. This weekend, I decided that they could go into the ground undercover. 3 Plants went in and I kept 2 behind as spares. As well as wetting the soil down, it's also had a good dose of rotted manure, so hopefully the plants will do well this year again.
But this is where our fury enemies, the moles, come in. We have been pestered with moles for ages. Last year turned out to be a really dry year, so after the initial spring period, they tended to stay quite deep and they didn't cause too much issues, although I did lose some crops. This year, with the wetter start, they have been more common than ever though. Each day I go to the plot and I find at least another 2 or 3 holes amongst the crop beds. Because the soil is so light and aerated, they don't need seem to form much in the way of mole hills. They just seem to tunnel away and push the soil to one side. One thing is for sure, it's a sign of having very healthy soil though, which is good. This morning, I went to check on the watermelon plantings, and found that the right hand plant had already been mole attacked! There was a hole next to it and the leaves looked somewhat dishevelled. When I scooped the plant out, I found that it had no root system left, just a stem. It's unlikely that this plant is going to survive, but I replanted it anyway, and next to it, I planted one of the spares.
What is really annoying though is that in yesterday's trip to the garden centre, I picked up some mole deterrent powder. It's organic and safe, but apparently just smells bad to moles, making them move elsewhere. I sprinkled the surface of the tunnel bed, and even tipped some into all the holes I found around the allotment, including on in the mini tunnel. I watered it in to start the mixture soaking into the ground only to find the very next day, the mole had been again. That deterrent is obviously no good. If to make things worse, and torment me even further, during today's visit to the plot, I stopped work for a chat with our association chairman. While we were talking, we both noticed a solitary climbing bean plant on the neighbours plot moving and twitching. After watching it for a few seconds and discounting any wind, it started twitching again. This time, the soil around it started to lift and even the plant labels in the ground next to the plant dropped. The bloody mole was right there in front of us! Actually, it's pretty obvious we have more than one. I think the site is riddled with them as plot holders all over are finding holes amongst their crops. War has been declared! Now I need to decide how to fight back and move them on!
