Earlier this week I realised that the nectarine trees are almost in full flower!  I hurriedly sprayed the stone fruit with copper oxychloride on 22 Aug.  I should have sprayed this at bud swell.  Hopefully better late than never.  The trees are flowering very early this year.  The only reason that I spray the stone fruit is that the young nectarine trees have been very badly affected by leaf curl.  Last year was the first year that they managed to have any fruit and a decent amount of new unaffected growth.

22 Aug was a big day in garden.  Several jobs were completed.  I installed sprinklers in the 2nd tunnel house.  The pipe has been there since last year, but I had not put in the uprights.

I gathered seaweed from the beach for the compost pile and a water-filled bin.  This gives me an additional source of liquid fertiliser.

The last big job for 22 Aug was seed sowing in the glasshouse.  I sowed the following: seeds:
1) large seed tray of onions – Italian long keeper
2) 2×6 hole punnets of sweet genovese basil
3) 9 hole punnet with 3 x rocket runway, 6 x lettuce (2 freckles, 2 green salad bowl, 2 summer queen)
4) 6 hole punnet rainbow chard
5) 6 hole punnet broccoli – 3 x de cicco, 3 x raab spring rapini
6) 6 hole punnet pak choi – choko F1
7) 6 hole punnet cauliflower – all year round
8) 6 hole punnet cabbage – copenhagen market
9) 6 hole punnet tomato – tigerella (my seed)
10) 6 hole punnet tomato – Dagma’s perfection (my seed)
11) 6 hole punnet tomato – Island Bay (my seed)
12) 6 hole punnet butternut – 2 x waltham, 4 x chieftain F1
13) 6 hole punnet oil seed pumpkin (my seed)
14) 4 hole punnet cucumber – 1 x green apple, 1 x cyclanthera, 2 x lemon
15) 4 hole punnet zucchini – cocozelle
16) 4 hole punnet pea – Wando select
17) 4 hole punnet pea – petit provencal
18) 4 hole punnet pea – 1 x Henry’s salad, 3 x Unwin’s king size
19 ) 4 hole punnet pea – Henry’s sugar snap
20) 6 hole punnet snow pea – 3 x goliath, 3 x southland snow
21) 2×6 hole punnet corn – sweet early gem
22) 2×6 hole punnet corn -golden bantam
23) 2×6 hole punnet corn -chieftain F1

On 24 Aug, Ben and Izzy helped me clean out the garden shed.  This always raises a huge cloud of dust inside the shed.  It’s always great when we’re finished!