Rescue herbs 2

Back to the garden centre and back to the bargain table. Although most of the herbs were gone and it was mainly mint there there were some new arrivals. Larger pots of lavender and rosemary and lavender. Ooh they smelled divine
So new additions to the herb garden include rosemary, lavender (no flowers but the promice of buds), garden mint, spearmint and lovage (I’m not exactly sure what this is but my friend tried a bit and said it was like corriander but stronger) . Now I just need a home for them

Sunday

Sunday meant a trip out for more council compost.. and we luckily got the last 6 bags! Its a shame they didnt have more but lucky as the ladies behind in the que wanted some too. Homebase yielded more marigolds (this time orange ones that look like pompoms) and hoorah more rescue strawberries (50p a pot). Ive put 4 strawberry plants in a pretty round teracotta pot we have and covered the soil in gravel. its both pretty and practical.

Using all the herbs we’ve been recently collecting i made a herb window box

Earthing up the potatos was the other main job of the day

We also started to make a gravel path around the raised beds but more on that later

Saturday kitchen garden

Lots of jobs done in the garden today:

Onions: Filled up half of raised bed 2 and planted four rows of onions (Red Baron and White Prince) and invetween each row sowed a row of spring ontions (some red some white). Is this a good idea i hope so. I have a feeling that its rather too late to be planting onions right now but we’ll just have to see what happens, delays in the raised bed building held them back. I do have some white onions growing in a plastic bag and they seem happy at lease although how well they grow we’ll have to see. The instructions say to plant onions 10-15 cm apart and 30cm between rows. Is this right? If so i could only put 2 rows in the half of the bed reserved for them. I have planted the rows 15cm apart so i just hope this works. We have far too many onion sets so some will have to go to waste which is such a shame. Do they keep? can i plant them for over winter? hopefully google will tell me. All in all there are 32 onions in half a bed. In order to deter birds i have placed a mass of sticks over the bed

Strawberries: But the “rescue” strawberries bought the other week in a larger tub

Apple Mint: This was potted into its own terracotta pot as im sure the telly said that it spreads and has to be kept separate.

Lettuce: Hoorah for lettuce! I bought three types of Franchi ‘cut and come again’ lettuce these give yummy looking mixes of red and greeen leaves and have planted the first lot of these in the old grape punnets that we were using as propogator lids back in march. The plan is to sow lettuce seeds every 2 weeks to hopefully get a continuous supply. More of the Spinach beet got planted too. Only one lettuce tub is currently ready (the lakeland seeds were a disaster, they just got long and stringy then we lost them when the greenhouse overturned in may – see this post) and its really yummy (see below)

Sunflowers: After accidentally missing the time to plant my ‘almost black’ sunflowers i thought id try planting the ones from Aldi as they were only 35p so it doesnt matter it they go wrong (hopefully we’ll have lovely golden flowers though). Using the Asda plastic cups i put too seeds in each and am waiting to see what happens to them in the greenhouse

Slug Shangrila: After accidentally leaving a pot of peelings outside i found it teeming with slugs after dark with several more trying to get in. Could this be a sneaky way of catching slugs..bait? Anyway all 14 of them ended up in the compost bin so hopefully they will be so happy there they wont come after the vegetables – incidently they have eaten all the lobelia!! i am very upset about this

Strawberries and tea

The first strawberries were ready and this had to be an occasion done properly so time for mid morning tea. The tea is an oolong tea called …

Rescue herbs

A trip to the garden centre on friday produced some fruitful results. Herbs in the bargain table. I love these areas and always go straight toward them in supermarket flower sections. Here live all the herbs which are a little sad and bedraggled looking that can’t be sold next to their shiny blooming friends.
There is usually nothing wrong with them, just a little small or raggedy ormissing their flowers but won’t they grow again… Won’t they flower again… I do hope so and in thiscase the 49p price tag is well worth it
So new arrivals to the garden include French tarragon lavender, apple mint and alpine strawberries. Here’s hoping of many culinary delights to come.

Protection against the evil (fl)eye

The windowledges of the house have been plagues by hundreds of teeny tiny flies. Im putting this down to the damp compost that is in all the pots sitting there…or it could be the plants… i dont know. Its been round the tomatos, squash, chillies, Okra… basically everything on a windowsill.

Plan of action (1) Move as many plants as possible out to the greenhouses (we have been leaving the doors open so the plants dont melt in this heat

Plan of action (2) Protection against the evil eye…um…fly. Im using the ancient custom of placing talismans to ward off evil…or in this case Marigolds!

I ”have been told” that its a good idea to plant marigolds around veg in order to deter ‘’some sort of pests”. To be honest im not sure which veg or which pests but im sure google will help me on that one. While im waiting to plant them out i have been putting them in little pots next to each group of vegi plants… Ok im sure it wont work as fast as that but i think listening to vampire stories on the bus kick started my imagination about protecting the poor tomatos from their evil menace…. and become unhappy tomatos.  Incidently im sure i read somewhere that planting garlic among some veg deters something

Found this 80’s kids cartoon on youtube… just a little bit wierd methinks but rather amusing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36NgK-vJc1M

Monday

<need to paste>

Sunday

<need to paste>

Saturday

<need to paste>

Amazing hail and translucent courgettes

Last sunday we finally got the compost for the raised beds and it was a surprisingly nice sunny day so time for a spot more gardening. The plan was to get the courgettes in the ground as they had begun to look a little strange, all the leaves were dying off and the whole things were becoming translucent! Well luckily we didnt put them out as that afternoon there was the most amazing tremendous hail storm! Being such a lovely day too we just had to run about outside under a large umbrella amazing in the spectacle.

Regarding the courgettes, the problem was discovered yesterday. They were growing in paper cups and I had neglected to put drainage holes in the bottom… oops. (this had occured since the cups had been leaking when used so didnt bother with the holes as the potting was only supposed to be for a couple of weeks). Well. you wouldnt believe the amounts of water that cascaded out of the pots when i pierced their bottoms with a pencil. Oh well hopefully they are feeling a little better now. Three are planted in a bucket and three are sitting in the greenhouse waiting to go in the soil.