Now its just weeding and feeding

Not that you can feed plants because they make their own food using carbon dioxide and water in the process we call photosynthesis.

This is why I always  write that I am putting fertiliser on the plants.  Sometimes I will use the word nutrients but whatever you use it is not food.

I went along the rows weeding and hoeing and got down as far as the leeks.  I would really like to put some more leeks in but there is no room.   I may have to take out some of the onions that have been affected by the onion miner fly.  This will give me more room for the leeks.  I thought that I had lost some leek seed that I had sown in the greenhouse.  Actually I had used the pot to transplant a celeriac into.  I  have put the celeriac outside now to harden off and the leek seeds have germinated and grown in the pot with the celeriac.  I was just about to weed the celeriac pot when I noticed that these were the lost leeks.

They will be transplanted into 3 inch pots, grown on and planted out at the end of June.

I have another oca! That makes three now.  I know that it is a bit sad to be so excited about three oca plants but, in my defence, it is the first time I have grown them.  I am a very traditional gardener and all these new vegetables seem to have crept up and overtaken me without me really being aware of them.  This will change.

Oca has a leaf not unlike black medic Medicago lupulina.  Black medic is a funny name for a plant with yellow flowers but I think the black refers to the seed.  It seems that the latin name refers to where the Greeks got it from and its flowers resemblance to hops.

I planted some more turnips, however I planted these in the pea bed because there was no room in the brassicae bed.  I'm not too sure whether I am happy with this because it is Brassica rapa var. rapifera -  the Japanese turnip and I am sowing it out of the strict rotation.  Still, I am interested in whether it does actually taste like melon or not and if it does, I want lots of it.  


I took out all the rocket because it was going to seed.  Its leaves were starting to look like lace because of the damage by the flea beetle.  I will resow later but now I will put some more spinach and Hamburg parsley in.  


I wanted to sow some more radish but I cannot for the life of me find the packet of seed.  I have tried planting in a pot so that I do not have to trape down to the allotment every time I want radish for salad.  The planting radish in a pot was not successful and, to top it all, it seems that I have lost the packet of seed as well.  I will look a little more carefully in the greenhouse today.