"Longest day: a cold hard solstice! The rats have carried away six out of seven of my biggest Bantam chickens; some from the stable, & some from the brewhouse." Gilbert White 1792
We finished up the longest day of the year with a picnic at the allotment, the weather mild. The corn there - Inca Rainbow - is very cheering. Most of my crops seem to be progressing much slower than last year. Lots of green tomatoes but still no ripe ones. Perhaps it's all the cloud cover we've had lately - today is dark again. Oca that I got from Patrick (on the left) has just put shoots above ground and Yacon plants (right, also sourced by Patrick) are about 15 inches tall. Having never before grown these tubers, I'm not sure how well this measures up. Still, five eggs today, and the chickens are all present and accounted for.
1 comment:
Your yacón is a little bigger than mine. It looks good. It may need some support as it gets bigger, and since it's roots are easily damaged you may want to put the cane in the ground now. Otherwise, you just have to wait...
I was thinking my garlic was a little smaller than last year, perhaps some other things are as well. At the same time, I still don't have any garlic rust!
The hard part about oca is it's daylight sensitive, so you need to do your best to keep it alive as close as possible to the winter solstice...
It's great you're planning to come to Oxford again this year. I think it's going to be a lot of fun, and there should be lots of interesting people. We had a great group last year, and I hope as many as possible come again this year.
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