Beans galore

The garden is suffering under the continuous heat. The temperatures have been above 35degrees for quite a while now. Rain is again not in sight for this week and the water tank is nearly empty. Good time to change the fitting of the tap on the tank as it has been leaking a bit.

The beans are doing well and I harvested the first handful for a dinner. I added some compost under each of the beans separately and water them at least once a day by hand. The butter beans are performing best. They showed the first fruit after 8 weeks as predicted on the packet.

The tomatoes are finished and did not produce the yield that I had hoped for. I wanted to make lots of tomato paste, but could not even get together one full batch. The first patch is still growing pumpkins, the zucchinis are finished, sweet potatoes have come up are are doing well. Basil loves the spot and the weather. Ready to think about winter crops. But I might only raise some seeds and not put anything into the ground until it gets a bit colder.

I planted some more beans seeds in toilet rolls straight into one of my raised garden beds and covered the area with straw. The slater population had already multiplied incredibly and the seedlings were eaten as soon as they tried to come out from the toilet rolls. No plants made it past the garden bed rim.

The most success planting and the least slater damage we had in freshly made up garden beds where the slater population was not yet established. Once the plants were off the ground, the damage was minimal. I think this might lead to letting the beds pretty much die down before planting new seedlings, getting rid of all straw and removing the comfortable habitat for the slaters. Fortunately our garden is big enough for thr trial of such procedure. There are plenty of spots that would be suitable for new garden beds. But I might have to sleep over that thought and flag it in my gardening networks.