Garden Blogs

Hi there Well, I’m back from a few days away with work (Hedgerow Safari-ing, let me know if you’re interested, there are still a couple more to go….) - the first thing I discover in the garden upon my return is that Cicely & Buttercup have eaten all the salad rocket! I am hoping that as it is a cut & come again, it will treat it as a cut, if somewhat drastic, & duly recover. It’s not that I’m bitter about it, but I have been looking up chicken casserole recipes…. I’m also slightly disappointed to find that nothing has grown much in the time I’ve been away. The beardy weirdy has pointed out that I shouldn’t have expected too much as it’s only been 3 days. However, at least I was able to reassure the veg man down the road that he isn’t going to be losing our business any time soon! Today has been glorious, so I’ve got all excited & planted out my climbing beans, squash & courgette plants. This has filled the beds out a bit & made it all look a bit more proper, however I am now worrying that slugs will chomp through everything overnight, so I’ve popped plastic bottles over everything - whole area now resembles a bottle factory…. I am experimenting a bit with a few things this year - permaculture suggests that you plant things closer together than usual, also that you companion plant. This gives better ground cover to keep in moisture & suppress weeds, also attracts beneficial insects, & hopefully should give better yields from smaller areas. I think it will also look quite pretty, so I’m going for it! I’ve also built(!) a “salad house” on the lawn, using 3 pieces of clear plastic left over from the lean-to roof & an old plastic compost bag - I appreciate this may be a bit difficult to visualise, so I have included a couple of photos… I’ve piled in a load of home-made compost, & I’ve planted tomatoes, a cucumber & some mixed basil seeds. I think I may also pop some salad leaves in there as well, since it should be pretty much hen proof!!!! My other experiment is with the carrots - I’ve never grown them before & I keep reading about carrot fly (I sometimes think that you’re better off not knowing …!) - it seems that carrot fly is attracted to the smell of the carrots, so you can plant onions, chives or leeks as a deterrent, or put a barrier around the crop up to 30 cm high (apparently the flies can’t fly higher than this - how do they know?!!), or put fleece over the whole crop. To be honest, the jury still seems to be out regarding the allium thing (although I have planted some chives nearby), I can’t really be bothered to erect a barrier all the way round, & I don’t really want to use fleece because it’s a bit difficult to keep an eye on slug damage (& it looks a bit weird…). Soooo - to the cunning plan! I’ve popped a few short bamboo canes in the ground, tied a few strips of the (now redundant!) fleece to them & impregnated them with citronella oil - it’s good for keeping flies & mosquitoes away, so perhaps will work with carrot fly? I’ll let you know….. Hoping your garden is proving as much fun/work/worry as mine! J x