September 2022 no dig tomatoes, interplants, aphids, melons, make compost, sowing dates and rye bread
Like most of the year so far, August has been warm and dry with 19C/66F mean temperature. It’d the second warmest August I’ve recorded, after 2003 which was exceptional. That’s now history but the legacy is dry soil: we have watered from one tap, to keep plants in production.
HOWEVER the weather looks like it’s changing big time – maybe a wet autumn. Just in time for my open day next Sunday 4th! We shall be selling my new No Dig book and also the 2023 calendar, which has not arrived yet (30th) but should be here by then.
Tomatoes
Do you remember last August? Much of north-west Europe was afflicted by late blight on tomatoes, because of a cold and damp summer with almost no sunshine!
Contrast that with this year. Anybody starting out in 2022, growing outdoor tomatoes in the UK for the first time will be thinking it’s so easy. The summer has been exceptional because tomatoes thrive in dry air and sunshine, plus with water for their roots.
Interplants
This method highlights the best of No Dig and I use it as much as I can. It still amazes me how I can put little seedlings between strongly growing and almost mature plants, and the new little seedlings grow so well.
I was brought up with the belief in competition! Turns out it’s cooperation.
I’m sure the mycorrhizal network is working here, with parent or ‘nurse’ plants helping the new ones. I hope the photographs convey a bit of this. Notice that often we are putting plants in very small and I think that helps.
Lettuce root aphid
Through August, these are a salad grower’s nightmare, and this year they’re worse than usual from the dry conditions. It’s not infrequently that one can go out to tend the plants, say pick them, and since 12 to 18 hours ago they’ve gone from looking healthy to being almost totally collapsed.
Mostly this is in dry Augusts, and watering is the best remedy. We are watering most lettuce every day, because of the lack of rain. It’s worth it for me because they are my highest value crop, but also I grow endive and chicory because those plants do not suffer the root aphid.
Other insects
Brassica vegetables have suffered this August from high populations of butterflies, moths and flea beetles. The latter have surprised me because normally they are worst in spring and early summer.
I’m finding that if plants have enough moisture at the roots, even not a huge amount, that can ensure their survival. It will now be a much easier autumn with few flea beetles because they start to hibernate. Against the caterpillars we are spraying every 18 days with Bacillus thuringiensis. Buy this one which is the same soil bacteria, only it’s used principally for box hedging
More plants to raise!
September is a key month for sowing and multisowing leafy plants, to do one of two things.
- Either they will over-winter as small plants, but with strong root systems which give rapid growth by early spring – for harvest when you will be so grateful for that early growth. I warmly recommend you look at this video which we filmed last December, to gain an idea of what these plants can look like by early winter.
- Or they give you salads to harvest from November though to April, depending on your climate and on winter weather. They are frost hardy plants and best harvests come from growing them undercover, but with no need for heating.
The list of what you can sow is long and I suggest a quick visit to my sowing timeline for September. For extensive details about propagation, we created a playlist on YouTube.
Transplanting
I love how one can pop little seedlings in the ground, so quickly and easily after dibbing (see my dibber here), water them a bit and then growth is rapid at this time of year. In the dry conditions of August it has actually worked a lot better than transplanting larger seedlings. However every garden is different and I’m just showing you that possibility, which may be less successful if you have high populations of slugs and snails.
This is one of the many things I explain in my new book, which we are selling on offer with the 2023 Calendar.
Seed saving
The dry summer has resulted in high quality seed. In July we gathered pea and broad beans, recently we harvested carrot, spinach and chard seed, and this week shall cut the onion stalks to bring the heads under cover before it rains too much. The seed is not totally dry but definitely dry enough to harvest and finish undercover, which is so much more reliable. More details in this video.
If you have lettuce outdoors for seed, that also may be worth harvesting before it rains a lot. I actually lost all of my outdoor lettuce seed to finches, who had quite a feast! Almost overnight as well.
Compost making
There are so many ways to succeed with this and I hope your results are encouraging, see our page of advice. Please don’t worry if your home-made compost does not look perfect. It can be quite lumpy and with bits of wood still visible, and that is good to spread without sieving or sifting.
Compost is food for soil life, it’s not ‘fertiliser’. The nutrients are not water soluble and you can spread it any time in the coming autumn for example. This video shows my results with a plastic Dalek of 330 L size. You could run a good composting operation with two such containers.
Melons
As the weather cools down, melons ripen more slowly and I hope that yours are at least fully grown because in September, they taste less sweet unless well developed by now.
There’s also a question of how much powdery mildew has developed on the leaves because this reduces photosynthesis, and makes them taste less amazing! It’s not an easy disease to control and I find that some varieties such as the Ogen below, resist mildew better than others. I shall publish more details later and there will be a video on YouTube.
Growing rye for bread, all by hand
I have long had a passion for making tasty and nutritious bread.
39 years ago I bought an electric stone mill and it’s still going. Last October I decided to have a go at growing rye for grain and one bed 5 m long gave 2.8 kg, enough for six of my heavy loaves.
This is not economic in terms of time, but has been fun to do and I want to develop my methods for next year. We shall publish a video about it during the winter.
Photo left by Heidi who wrote and sung this beautiful song, photo right by Briony Plant.
Polytunnel summer
To finish, some lovely views of summer vegetables, in late August.
Glorious post! I adore your work. For the rye, do you mean you planted 60 seeds in each of 31 groups, or 60 seeds in all? I adore making sourdough rye. My favorite starter, besides wild culture, was a New Zealand rye starter I acquired several years ago. Would be a great project to grow our own.
My children and I harvested our multi-sown onions tonight, with some massive red potatoes. I’ve combined your multi-sowing technique with Ruth Stout deep hay mulch (can’t get unsprayed straw here so have to use hay) and soaker hoses and it’s a great fit for our difficult Texas panhandle climate. Thank you for sharing your gifts and calling with us. 🙏
Thanks Kirsten.
Makes sense you read September in Texan October!
It was 60 seeds in all. This year I’m growing more480 module cells with two seeds each.
Hello Charles!
I have recently learned that package inserts from a refrigerated mailing I receive monthly are made of wool! I opened them and found that the wool is about 2″ thick, and is composed of several thinner layers compressed together. I am also told that the outer covering which looks like blue plastic is also compostable. I’m wondering if it would be helpful to my soil to layer the wool as a winter covering on my garden plots? I would like to use it to its greatest value, I’m just not sure what that is. I have a very large box full of it. Would love to hear your ideas!
Thank you,
Gerri
Hi Gerri and that sounds promising. We used some such wool last spring and it decomposed nicely over a few months, giving healthy growth of spinach nearby.
Putting it on the ground now is a good option, and then plant through it in the spring. I don’t think it harbours slugs!
Hi Charles, I’m hoping your experience will be able to help me with a mystery of what happened to my Kale Black Magic plants. I had a dozen plants in a bed under insect mesh for protection against butterflies. They were growing really well and pretty big, just about ready to start harvesting when overnight last month they were munched down to stumps. It looked like maybe pigeons but we’ve never had any problems with pigeons before plus the plants were netted and when I checked there were no gaps. I also thought of rabbits but the veg garden is pretty rabbit proof, again the kale was netted with no gaps and both else had been touched. My assumption then was voles as we’ve had problems with voles this year finding tunnels under the beds and I’ve lost peas and beetroot to them. I think too much kale disappeared in one night for it to be anything like slugs! However after a couple of weeks (too depressing to deal with the remains immediately) I’ve investigated and there are no tunnels or anything under the bed so no signs of voles. So a complete mystery. I should also say that half of the same bed had French beans both dwarf and climbing although these weren’t netted. None of these were touched and have grown well. Would you please have any ideas what might have happened? I’m reluctant to replant (have cauliflower and onions to go in) without knowing what ate my kale. Any thoughts gratefully received
Thanks in advance
Rachelle
Rachelle
Oh dear, that’s like somebody performed a magic trick. And I can only imagine that it was indeed a person, somebody who loves kale.
But you haven’t described the state of the plants when you found them because you say stems munched down, so were there teeth marks?
I totally understand your being depressed about it! Squirrels can do a lot of damage without disturbing netting but they wouldn’t do that much. A cow could eat like that but they would not leave the net undisturbed!
Thanks Charles, yes a real mystery. No cows for sure and this is part of my garden not an allotment so I don’t think it was a person. Nothing else was touched. I couldn’t see any teeth marks but a few wispy stalks left of the leaves. I’m going to risk planting my cauliflowers out this weekend so wish me luck! Thanks as ever for all the sound advice. I’m hoping to get to one of your courses sometime.
Hi Charles,
Some of this year’s potato crop (Charlotte) are green in part – roughly a third of the potato – can I store them and use them next year as seed potatoes to chit?
Thanks so much for all your inspirational work.
Hello Hilary, thanks, and yes you can.
For larger potatoes with just a little green, you can cut that off to compost, and eat the main part.
Hi Charles,
It was nice to have some rain recently – it saved on watering!
Earlier in the year I mentioned about growing Achocha. It took a while for the plants to get going and they only really took off around the beginning of August.
I’ve found the best way to eat them is to wait for the pods to mature then fry until they start to brown. Not only do they taste nice but there’s also seed for next year so win-win!
Is there a signup for email notifications that your blog is published? I would love to stay more up to date even through the busy months 🙂
Yes, on the homepage of this site is a sign up to my free newsletter, which has a link to blogs like this
Cleaning up today, old brassica leaves, old courgette leaves and tomato leaves.
How do these rate in the compost heap as green/brown?
More green than brown, say 60-80% green depending how fibrous
Hi Charles – firstly many thanks for all your advice a experiences shared, all so amazingly helpful. Secondly, in your Warming Down newsletter you mentioned cabbages that had been “frequently deleafed”. Can you explain how that works and helps? My first attempt at a few, sewn in spring, are poor little things which have not grown much at all.
Hello Joy, nice to hear, except you need more compost and/or moisture, maybe the latter this summer.
See this video about deleafing, to reduce slugs and moisture loss.
Thank you Charles – that was really helpful: nothing like seeing it & having it all explained so well!
We’ve had 4 inches of rain in NW London in a fortnight spanning the August-September changeover, which has had some interesting effects on the no-dig allotment which was without water for the best part of 10 weeks.
The first crop of Celery, planted out mid-May, which didn’t take off all summer, has suddenly doubled in height and we may just get a crop. Much later than normal (currently 2 months late!) but any celery this year is seen as a bonus!
Both the Brussels Sprouts and Winter King Cabbage, which sat around healthily doing almost nothing for 2 months after planting out, have suddenly shot ahead and the cabbage has started to heart and the sprouts now look as if they may produce a crop. Neither have been netted and only minor damage has occurred to the leaves during the wet period (there was zero damage during the hot drought). My conclusion is that year 3 appears to be the best starting point for brassicas, as both years 1 and 2 struggled to produce crops starting from a very damaged plot.
Despite the hot dry summer, a test harvest of Arran Victory maincrop potatoes, 18 weeks after sowing, gave an excellent harvest with very little damage. There were still quite a lot of small potatoes, which may suggest that further bulking up will occur if they remain in the ground for a few weeks more. But it shows the resilience of a no-dig garden.
Leaving the courgettes to bulk up into marrows the past fortnight has given 4 good-sized marrows, which based on last year will store indoors throughout the winter. They will be harvested tomorrow before the predicted first cold night.
The cucumber plant was finally pulled after harvesting another 13 half-size fruit/vegetables off the plant today. That’s well over 30 cucumbers (ok, smaller size) from 1 plant taking up 1 sqm. It seemed to thrive being fed a mulch of harvested comfrey leaves.
I started harvesting the Autumn Mammoth Leeks, which didn’t do brilliantly due to the heat and dryness but will at least give some ‘little leeks’ for September meals. It seems that leeks survive but will not thrive in long, hot summers and the rain was maybe too late for them to really bulk up well. My winter leeks, planted out six weeks later, seem to be bulking up much better after the rain.
The questions still remain over the celeriac and the swede plants. There are some roots on the celeriac but not the large ones of last year. The swedes have good foliage but are yet to produce any noticeable roots.
The warmth and the rain has accelerated the development of autumn turnips and winter radish significantly (sown early August and only watered twice to get germination going). I was doing my final thinning today and already, there are several Purple Top Milan roots swelling and the thinned winter radish plants often had significant root formation already. It promises to be an excellent crop.
This is fascinating and encouraging Rhys. It’s brilliant you had all that rain. For comparison we had 60mm, but have been watering before that.
Charles, your calendar is so helpful! I don’t have a polytunnel or greenhouse but I do have cloches and fleece. When do plants need to be sown if given this protection? I am rather confused by indoor / outdoor distinction as polytunnel is surely much lighter and warmer? Many thanks, Ellen
Hello Ellen, and you are right, sorry it’s unclear. Cloches and fleece give protection for sure, but are not equivalent to under cover spaces such as polytunnel, windowsill and greenhouse. There is not a lot of space in the calendar to explain much detail but I’m wondering if we need to clarify this one, although it’s too late for 2023.
Charles, I have 6 beautiful and strong purple sprouting broccoli plants in my plot. I am so pleased I netted them this year which has kept the caterpillars off and helped keep some slugs out too I think. However, all but one of them is flowering now! I think they think it’s spring time and have little purple heads and some side shoots. I’ve read that this can happen if the soil has been very warm (which of course it has). Have you seen this happen before? I would be happy to eat them now but this is the main crop I look forward to in the spring. Is there anything I can do to slow them down and ensure they last until next spring? Thanks so much.
Hi Sarah
This is so frustrating for you! And I have a feeling that it’s from the variety you sowed which is programmed to crop in autumn to early winter, rather than spring. The important information you missed in your question is the name of the variety.
It’s confusing now that some have been bred for cropping in autumn.
You need to keep harvesting what grows know and I think it’s unlikely that you will get a spring harvest, but there’s no harm in leaving them in the ground in hope perhaps more than expectation.
Hi Charles, thanks for your reply. You are spot on! The seed packet says ‘harvest June to October’. Why didn’t I read the seed packet properly? The packet is David Domoney in association with Mr Fothergills and it’s just called ‘Broccoli (sprouting) Summer Purple’. We will just have to eat it then 🙂 and freeze it.
They could flag it up more!
Second lot of medania spinach has been nibbled. Possibly by mice or slugs. Looks like the leaves have been sliced off. I have just sown some more. When is the latest you can sow for outside plants?
Thank you for your continuing to share your garden thoughts ..
Oh dear. I would do a thorough hunt in your propagating area, where slugs might be hiding. And set a mousetrap.
We’re close to final opportunity and there won’t be much growth during winter when you sow spinach in mid September.
Thank you Charles again. Fascinating year here in West Norfolk. Wet February, very little rain since then until the last two weeks, when we’ve had two flooding storms. I was watering lettuce, French beans (dwarf in ground as well as climbers in tubs), celeriac and courgettes: no other vegetables watered except in greenhouse. Recommend ‘New Red Fire’ lettuce from Seaspring. Goes on for ever. Beetroot (multi-sown) have been brilliant; carrots terrible; onions good; tomatoes and peppers (inside and out) excellent. Climbing beans, sown early May, planted late May, simply didn’t climb. Since the rain they are going mad, and all the plants that have given a harvest are flowering profusely again. Courgettes no good for two months, then since the rain incredibly productive. Conclusion: whatever water I can put on is not enough, especially if it’s over 30 degrees every day. This softer late August warmth, plus downpours, has been wonderful.
Last year was our trial year for winter salads, mostly Japanese, in greenhouse, and covered spinach and pak choi outside. Now we know it will work well, we shall go for it in a big way. Thank you! Also looking forward to Sissinghurst.
I’m glad you have had some rain Alan, and what a result!
I look forward to meeting you at Sissinghurst.
We’ve had a very hot, very dry summer in NW London and the four summer crops I’ve found did best with minimal watering (we finally had an inch of rain last week on around 23rd August) were:
1. Maskotka cherry tomatoes – still harvesting beautifully deep red fruit at the end of August with probably one or two final harvests still to go.
2. A mini cucumber plant, which has to date yielded 25 cucumbers of 4-6 inches length and 1-2 inches width. I laid down some cut comfrey leaves as summer food soon after transplanting and the yield has been epic for outdoor growth.
3. Robuschka beetroot, transplanted into a well-watered bed in the 2nd week of June and only watered twice since (3 days after transplantation and a week later – an excellent bed of uniformly large and round beets, which will sit in the ground until late September before harvesting for storage.
4. Sweetcorn – a successful harvest of corn, despite very limited opportunities to water after the first month post-transplantation.
Finally, I planted out a chilli plant in amongst the yarrow, spring onion clumps and brassica transplants and it now has about a dozen ripe yellow chillis on it – yielding many more than identical plants grown at home in pots.
We’ll see how the maincrop potatoes do, but the squash yields are down about 50% in terms of numbers – normally I get 20-25 squash fruit from 8-10 plants, but this year it will be 10-12, although the ones which have developed are a good size. Crown Prince, Red Kuri and Hunter all seem to have suffered equally. Squash seem to do best with warmth but also some heavy downpours – the summer of 2020.
Rhubarb Champagne has, surprisingly, prospered over the summer and we are starting to take some huge stalks again from the bottoms of the plants. I can see why people rave about the strain….
Hi Rhys
This sounds pretty good overall, considering the dry conditions. Isn’t it interesting how every year is so totally different. Plants adapt but the results can surprise us, and I’m amazed by your Champagne rhubarb.
When I had my 30ftx14ft poly-tunnel one “Butternut” planted early in the year, occupied almost 1/4 by September. Fruit left on until the plant died back, once yielded 23 fruit, which lasted through the winter
Hi Charles
I’ve recently switched from liquid soap to bars to reduce my plastic use. I wondered if I can compost the ends of the soap? I saw somewhere that one can, but it seems counterintuitive given that one of the roles of soap is to breakdown the bacteria on your hands. On the other hand, it has been shown that whilst hand gels kill all bacteria and recolonisation of hands tends to be by the less healthy kinds, however after using soap it’s apparently the healthy bacteria that stage a comeback. So I’ve been trying to figure out what the effect would be on compost bacteria. It’s a conundrum.
What’s your view? (Yes, as a chronic insomniac I probably have too much time on my hands!)
Hi Susie
I reckon it depends on the soap. If it’s chemical stuff made by Unilever, maybe best not put in the compost heap.
Natural soaps, however you define that, are not killing all bacteria and I would compost the leftovers. Bacteria are amazing at reproduction and recoveri, thankfully.
Get a mesh bag and use the ends of your soap to wash or grate them and add them to laundry.
Hi Susie, apologies for a plug but my wife sells 100% biodegradable soaps and shampoos from ZWP as well as the sisal mesh bags for washing or drying natural soaps. Its on redpandatrading.com
Agree with Charles, I wouldn’t put chemical soaps from Unilever, Proctor and Gamble etc. on my compost heap let alone my hair and body!
I have just completed a soil test on my 1yr old compost, the results are
Ph 7.2
N med/high
P med.
K med.
Are these results good and how does that equate to NPK percenyages
That is all fine Brian – and I have no idea how that equates to NPK percentages. Nor I reckon does that matter!
Compost is not a fertiliser, it has some slow release nutrients but more than anything it’s a biological stimulant for soil life, which can then organise nutrients and moisture flows to plant roots.
Think of it as soil food rather than plant food, and then gardening becomes really easy, you feed all your soil with a little compost and do not worry about plants finding food!
Thank you for all the knowledge that you share. I have wanted one of your books for years and so this year I decided to treat myself with one as a birthday present.
We also had some rough times this year with heat and rain in the southern United States and I think the only vegetable it didn’t affect was my peppers. It was a great year for them!
Sorry to hear this Celia and I don’t envy you your weather extremes. I congratulate you on finishing your post on a positive note! And I hope the peppers taste good.
And, Happy Birthday!
Thank you for all the valuable information you share. How thick is the poly twine you use for trellising your tomatoes and cucumbers? It looks like a baler twine, but I’m not sure. I will like to get some similar twine. Thanks for your help.
Cheers Gregory.
Yes, baler twine!
It’s fabulous seeing your plots develop over the course of the year, so inspirational. Hoping not too much devastation on ours as we’ve been away for a couple of weeks!
Could you give a bit more advice for anything you can grow in polytunnels over the winter months please? I grew climbing French beans one year well into November, other suggestions to what works would be very welcome.
Thanks Gillian, and for harvests De3cember to early March, it’s all the leaf vegetables I mention.
For April harvests, sow carrots early October, and fennel mid September.
Thank you! Great reading. It certainly has been an interesting year for growing veg!! I am interested to know how you deal with white fly which is a huge problem on my brassica plants.
Thanks Barbara,
With water and compost. Strong and well watered plants are not of interest to aphids, or much less. It can take a while to build the fertility needed.
Hi Charles, I hear interplanting marigolds deters white fly and carrot fly. I haven’t tested it yet but it’s on the job list for next year!
Thanks for all the good advice!
Kind regards
Ray
Hi Ray
They help. Deters is a good word and does not mean stops, just to be clear.
In my experience, when carrot fruit flies are abundant there is almost nothing can stop them, except a very well secured mesh of high quality, with no holes and put in place before 10th August before the autumn hatching.
Completely inspirational. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.