Monday, July 22

Exercising the podding finger and clopyralid damage update,

On Friday, last week we had what, Martyn would call 'proper rain' and it just so happened that this was the day that the two senior biologists from Corteva came to visit. Imagine the scene, four of us squeezed into our 6x8 plot greenhouse. They immediately confirmed what we suspected which was that our tomato plants had been affected by hormone weedkiller residue. Also as we suspected this was most likely to be caused by clopyralid residue in the grow bags that was transferred to the compost in the green waste used in the production. They stayed for about three quarters of an hour chatting about the problems and answering our questions and took away a couple of samples to analyse. As we have always thought, the testing may or may not confirm that clopyralid residue is present. As just a tiny amount can affect plant growth locating that amount in a grow bag is difficult to say the least. I've still not received acknowledgement from Levingtons that they have received the sample that we sent on 8 July. On our visitor's suggestion we have now also emailed the garden centre from which we purchased the grow bags. We've put together a video of the information gleaned from the visit and I will also dedicate a blog post to the problem shortly.

We have managed some work on the plot although we did have a day or two off.  One was to pay one of our regular visits to Yorkshire Wildlife Park. The painted dogs had given birth to pups and we hoped to catch a glimpse of them. We were in luck. Their cuteness belies the fact that the will grow up to be fearsome predators.
With flying freeloaders around the meerkats were wise to post lookouts.

There are plenty of youngsters in the garden too. They soon learn where the nearest well stocked dining area is and our feeders are emptying quickly.
Excuse the poor quality but the above were taken from a window in poor light conditions
At the allotment, we caught a glimpse of another young bird. I think it's a juvenile green woodpecker. If so, it is the first we have seen locally. The only other one we have seen was in France.

It has mainly been a  week of tidying and harvesting, both on the allotment and in the garden. It's amazing how quickly once the beds are fully planted that we start clearing them again. Martyn cleared our first brassica bed which will soon be planted up with a late sowing of dwarf French beans.

The climbing beans have been slow to get going but at last some are producing flowers.
I tied in some new growth from the most vigorous of our new raspberries.
My pod popping finger had plenty of exercise last week. We harvested all the broad (fava) beans from the first sowing of De Monica - video here. (I can't hear the words fava beans without thinking of Hannibal Lecter). We also pulled over two bucketfuls of peas from our first sowing of Onward. These have now been frozen to be enjoyed throughout the year.
15 July
 We dug the first of our trial potatoes, a variety called Premiere - video here -which we were impressed with. We also dug the first of our Athlete potatoes - shown in the last photo. They looked good and had produced a good harvest. They haven't been tasted yet, but if they pass the taste test we will be spoiled for choice of early potatoes next year.
18 July
Before, Martyn cleared the brassica bed, it yielded the last of its crop - a cabbage and a couple of small cauliflowers.
19 July
We picked the first of our Sugar Snap peas and some small courgettes all of which went into a stir fry. A couple of courgette plants have disappeared,  so it's a good job that we didn't stick to Monty Don's two plants to one person rule or Martyn would have been courgetteless.
21 July
The berries keep on coming. Along with the usual varieties, we have had the first picking of blackcurrants. It's a tedious and time consuming job but well worth it.

Finally, the stems of the dahlias and sweet peas are now a better length. My favourite sweet pea at the moment is a variety called Heathcliff. It's a dark blue and, unusually for a dark colour, it has a wonderful perfume. We haven't grown it before but I'd certainly give it a place on next year's list



This week I am linking to harvest Monday hosted on 

Dave's blog Our Happy Acres

UPDATE video update after meeting with Corteva is posted here

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22 comments:

  1. I suspect that the visit from the Corteva people may turn out to be a figurative "pat on the head". Lots of nodding wisely (confirming what you knew already), expressions of sympathy, avoidance of accepting any responsibility, and in the end - NO ACTION!

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    1. Actually we expected Corteva to be less up front. They didn’t hesitate to confirm that the compost was most likely contaminated with clopyralid and encourage us to complain. They were definitely concerned about the contamination of compost and were going to discuss with Levington. I do think they will try to improve things. At least the came to sample themselves, unlike Levington who haven’t yet answered my email asking whether they received the sample we sent to them. No acknowledgement of any kind,

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  2. It makes you think, doesn't it, when something you trust, and a trusted brand, goes wrong. I hope you get more answers soon, and hopefully some compensation for loss of crop.
    Lovely photos of everything else too.

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    1. I doubt that there will be any compensation, Deborah, we have never been offered ant before. We'll be lucky if Levingtom give us money back on he grow bags.

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  3. What a commentary on modern compost for it to be contaminated with a herbicide. We never had these problems with peat based compost. Composts for amateurs seem to cause most problems.
    My scientist friend Peter buys professional composts from E Riding Horticulture who are near us. Its more expensive than bargain stuff at the garden centre but worth it. I expect it might be peat but commercial growers do also use none peat composts too. I would imagine their quality control is of a higher standard

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    1. There seem to be lots of issues with compost, Roger not just herbicide contamination. Making compost using roadside green waste is never going ti be a safe way, Goodness knows what people put in their garden waste bins. There is no consistency either as the waste collected is always going to be variable. I did read that horticulture was only responsible for using a tiny proportion of the peat and yet we seem to have been labeled the bad guys.

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  4. Vegetables, flowers, and wildlife! - a very enjoyable post!
    But sorry to hear of your problems with weed killer in the compost.
    Have a Wonderful week!

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  5. Lovely harvests - time does seem to go so quickly in the veg garden - there's always something to sow, pick, clean up, etc. That's unfortunate about the grow bags - It's ironic that we know so much more about herbicide contamination now but it just seems as if the problem is getting worse, not better.

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    1. The problem seems to be, Margaret that you can have the best safeguards in place but they rely on people following the rules. This is compounded by the fact that the supply chain is notoriously difficult to track in order to determine where the breakdown occurred.

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  6. You got some great wildlife photos. It looks like you're getting a good selection of fruits and veggies now, what with spring and summery things ready together.

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    1. I think wildlife and gardening fit together really well, Dave.

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  7. I enjoyed all of your pictures. I think it is a green woodpecker. I know what you mean about the young birds eating from the feeders. One of the first things they learn. I hope you find out something about the chemicals destroying some of your crops.

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    1. It's amusing watching them tackle the birdbath, Lisa especially when it is empty but they go through the motions of bathing regardless. Apparently green woodpeckers diet contains a high proportion of ants of which we have an abundance. All seem intent on biting me so I say go got it Woody,

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  8. I ripped up my peas yesterday ... to save the seed from the older pods. Hard for peas to grow in temperatures of 98 F (37 C.)
    Ray

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    1. I'm hoping that our predicted mini heatwave doesn't cut our pea season short, Ray, We shouldn't have such high temperatures, 32 is the highest predicted which is still too high for me.

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  9. Such a productive garden. Envious of all the berries. Nice to see all the birds too.

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    1. We have constant birdsong at the moment, Sue. Lovely background sound to gardening.

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  10. Sue, the tomato plants in our PT have suddenly developed leaves that look like your picture. I thought it was some sort of initial blight attack and removed them all, but now I wonder. I dug in compost made by our local council to the tomato bed, so I am going to keep an open mind to see how things go. Nothing else seems to be affected though, only the tomatoes … I also added it to where the onions are growing and they are just fin. I'll take a picture if more leaves ar like that today. No blight-brown marks though......

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    1. Look especially at the growing tips of the plants, Kathy which will be thin and ferny. WE are posting another video later today on our vlog which shows this clearer. Green council waste is a prime suspect so I would contact them, Corteva and the Health and Safety Executive, The onions won't show any symptoms of damage as they are not suscepible.

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  11. Just loved the wildlife and birds. Most envious of your woodpecker, how beautiful. I can't stand the heat, it's so difficult to get anything done.xxx

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    1. I'm hoping that the woodpecker deals with all our ants, Dina

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