Sweetcorn planted with Winter Squash and Pumpkin

The day before the deluge of rain that accompanied the holiday weekend we managed to plant out the sweetcorn Early Extra Sweet in the large allotment. In amongst the sweetcorn we planted planted a pumpkin Rouge Vif D’Etampes and a winter squash Marina Di Chioggia. The idea being that these will use the unused space between the sweetcorn to ramble and suppress weeds. We will see. Last year they obviously had a falling out with the sweetcorn, scrambling as far away from the corn as they could despite us dragging them back at intervals.

We certainly didn’t have to worry about watering as it rained for three days afterwards and I had to support some of the sweetcorn with small canes as they were being flattened.. This must have encouraged the slugs and snails to come out as I found one of my courgette plants lying dead beside the remains of its stem which had been eaten clean through. Now there are 3 plants left. Admittedly these should be enough as I don’t want to buried under a glut if courgettes - but it’s still annoying to lose a plant you have nurtured from seed.