Thursday 08 May 2014
Confined to the Greenhouse
Thursday was a dull day with plenty of light showers thrown in for good measure. The weather has turned all Aprilly on us after a few days of warm sunny conditions. The forecast for the next five days is for a very unsettled spell with sunshine and showers being the order of the day.
I did manage to get a little bit of catching up done in the greenhouse. All our sweet peas have now been potted on into larger modules to grow on before planting out.
Some of the first sweet peas to be transplanted were “White Frills” which had grown well enough to have their main shoot pinched out to encourage them to make much bushier plants. We are after maximum flower production rather than show bench perfection. These will soon be moved into the cold frame before they are planted out in the plot where they are to flower.
Friday 09 May 2014
Cooking up Something Special
Friday was another inside day as during the morning there was lots of short heavy showers which mostly cleared away after lunch time leaving a very windy and sunny afternoon. A gust of 28.0mph recorded in the middle of the afternoon was a record high for May.
The mild wet weather is spot on for slugs and snails to do what they seem to do best, devastate our seedlings. A check in the greenhouse each morning will catch a few late returning opportunists who are removed to that great council compost bin. On the Internet I spotted an article saying that a Garlic spray might act as a deterrent to slugs and snails.
There seems to be plenty of recipes out there but do they work? I’ve decided to give it a go. Most of the recipes are something like this:
Crush 2 bulbs of garlic. Steam or boil in 2 pints of water for 3 to 4 minutes until blanched. Strain mixture and make back up to 2 pints. Leave to cool. When ready to use mix one tablespoon into a gallon (3.8 litres) of water.
I’m going to give it a try. There doesn’t seem to be much to loose. It’s a deterrent rather than a slug or snail killer but at least it isn’t going to damage any crops or other animals. I’m planning to give it a trial around our cold frame and perhaps around crops very susceptible to slug damage like lettuces and maybe even try it around our carrot seedlings.
Saturday 10 May 2014
Another Staying in Day -
Saturday wasn’t as windy as Friday but we still had lots of showers throughout the day. The sun came out between the showers just long enough to tempt you into thinking about doing some gardening then another heavy shower arrived.
There seems to be little improvement in the weather over the next few days but there’s a hint that high pressure and more settled weather may arrive later in the week. Of course if it turns out to be correct how long will the high pressure remain in charge?
Sunday 11 May 2014
Garlic Spray Prepared
Sunday’s weather was an improvement over Saturday as the showers stayed away although it was very breezy and the clouds often threatened showers but they never actually materialised.
My garlic spray experiment got under way. Garlic bulbs were crushed and simmered lightly for 5 minutes.
After simmering for the required time the resulting garlicky brew was left for a few hours to go cold before being decanted into an old milk container. I took a few photos of our hostas planted in large pots around the pond before spraying. It would be lovely to keep these plants’ leaves hole free through the summer. A real test for the garlic spray.
Some hostas are looking really good just now and completely free of slug or snail damage. It’s an extra challenge to keep them this way around the pond as fish are normally extremely sensitive to any garden chemicals and hence we make sure no chemicals go anywhere near these hostas.
A couple of hostas already have a bit of slug or snail damage. This isn’t too bad and if spraying with garlic keeps the blighters under control and avoids complete devastation which has happened in the past I’ll be pleased.
Once the spray was cold I mixed up a sprayful of the liquid. The recipe suggested that one tablespoon should be mixed with one gallon of water. As I had another 4 pint milk container handy I decided to use 1 tablespoon of my concentrated garlic solution to one carton or 4 pints of water.
I gave all our potted hostas, greenhouse plants and cold frame plants a spray along with a couple of free range hostas growing in a garden border. I have to admit there didn’t seem to be much of a garlic aroma from the spray and I decided to add another tablespoon of concentrate to my mixed up liquid.
I gave all the plants another spray in the early evening on the grounds the leaves may still be wet with the solution when the slugs and snails came out to feed.
So the hope is that we can prevent the hostas from looking like this. We do have much worse damage than shown in this picture but it’s obviously something we don’t make a point of photographing.
Watch this space to see how our garlic spray experiment performs.
Monday 12 May 2014
Monday Moan!
The weather couldn't really make its mind up on Monday. There were enough heavy clouds about to suggest some heavy showers were likely but through the morning we only had a few spits and spots of rain so we decided to go and cut the grass at the allotment.
There hadn’t been any obvious damage from the windy weather but one or two things on the plot don’t seem too happy and are a little disappointing.
These are our first planting of broad beans Witkeim Manita and they don’t look too happy. Surprisingly they had a major setback following a frosty morning a week or so ago and are also been badly nibbled by weevils. The two things together are stopping the beans making any progress at all. They’ve now had a liquid feed and a spray with our garlic spray to see if that will deter the weevils.
Next in the firing line are our first sowing of peas Carouby de Maussane and whilst these germinated after any frosty mornings weevils are doing their best to eat the new leaves away to nothing. The peas have been given the same treatment as the broad beans and I’m hoping they’ll get on and do a bit of growing.
Speaking of nothing that’s exactly what’s left of our carrots. They’d germinated nicely last week but the mild nights and perpetually damp conditions have proved a haven for slugs and the seedlings have been devastated. The only option will be to re-
As if it isn’t bad enough trying to keep our precious plants protected from pests and diseases someone has trampled on our new raspberry bed that was planted up last autumn. This may have been done by our new plot neighbour who we haven’t seen yet but if he/she has trampled on our plot they’re not off to a very good start.
Whilst I’m blogging about things not looking too promising our plum and greengage trees seem to have some sort of pest infestation too which is stopping the new leaves opening.
This is a typical branch of our greengage with the leaves looking as though they are withering away and about to fall off. Perhaps a dose of the magic garlic solution might help.
To finish off today’s not so good cropping news on a more promising note the calabrese and spring cabbage bought from Marshalls earlier in the spring as plug plants are looking really well and with a bit of luck they will provide us with some early summer greens well in advance of our home grown plants which are growing on nicely in the cold frame.
The one thing you can be certain about growing your own is that there will be some setbacks along the way but then that’s the challenge of growing your own.
Tuesday 13 May 2014
Drenched
It wasn’t a bad day on Tuesday apart from the thunderstorm, torrential rain and hailstones in the middle of the afternoon.
I’ve started renovating another part of our garden. It’s a sort of underused area behind our greenhouse. For many years now it’s been the home to our cold frame so while it might be underused it’s played an important part in our growing cycle.
Back in spring 2011 the renovation started so it’s certainly not been a rushed job. We’ve made lots of plans for this little area and then changed our minds before actually doing anything. The result of the 2011 renovation is shown below.
The cold frame remained in place and various plants have been grown through summer on the area covered with bark chippings. The area looked much better than it had done but we weren’t yet satisfied that we were getting the best out of this area. The plans were put in place to install a raised bed to grow a few salad types crops and herbs at home which we can just pop out of the kitchen and harvest as required. Last summer we had this large pot of mint which kept us supplied with fresh mint all summer and enough to make mint sauce to last us through winter.
This is the sort of result we want but for salad crops too. One of the problems is that this little area has become a dumping ground for all those pots and large tubs that aren’t currently growing anything but might be in a few weeks time. They have to be stored somewhere don’t they. Notwithstanding the fact that we haven’t really sorted out this storage issue we decided to replace our ancient aluminium cold frame with a couple of new cedar ones.
I’ve pondered long and hard about whether to continue to place our new cold frames and raised bed on the existing bark chippings or to pave the area using concrete paving stones. The area seems to be a popular haunt for slugs and snails and for a while I thought concrete paving stones might be the better option to control them. I’ve come to the conclusion that if they’re going to be a problem then whatever ground cover I use they’ll continue to be a problem.
As our cold frames are due to arrive this Friday I thought I’d better get an area sorted out where the cold frames can be constructed. I’m anticipating using old and new cold frames side by side for a few weeks as plants are moved out of the greenhouse into the cold frame to be hardened off. The plan is to eventually dismantle the old aluminium cold frame and re erect it on the plot. This will then give us space for our raised bed.
All was going quite well until the middle of the afternoon and the arrival of a that very untimely thunderstorm. It was just as if someone had turned on a hosepipe except that there were hailstones mixed in with the rain. It’s not far from the back of the greenhouse to the shelter of the kitchen but by the time I’d made that short journey I was soaked to the skin.
The water didn’t drain through the weed control fabric going under the bark chipping and concrete paving flags forming the footpath. All I could do was leave the area to dry out and hope the weather forecast which is for settled weather conditions for the next few days turns out to be correct.
The ivy is from our neighbours garden but has taken a liking to the timber fence. The birds love it and I think a blackbird has nested in the thickest part this spring. The shrub at the far end of the cold frame is also growing in a neighbours garden and will be pruned back to the fence line to tidy up the area. Sue has some ideas of new plants to grow up the fence but I’ll leave those ideas for another time.
Wednesday 14 May 2014
Casablanca and Rocket Trial
Wednesday was a nice mild day with plenty of sunny spells.
We popped down the allotment in the afternoon to drop of a few large stones surplus to requirements at home but with all sorts of holding down uses on the plot. We didn’t plan on doing anything else once we’d dropped off the stones but we couldn’t resist the temptation to have a little wander around the plot snapping pictures of anything that took our fancy.
This is the first year we have tried growing early potatoes through weed control fabric. We planted four short rows of Casablanca and Rocket early potatoes on 10 April with two rows under weed control fabric and two rows simply using our conventional trowel planting technique for comparison.
As protection against a frost on 03 May all emerging shoots were either covered with straw for the rows under weed control fabric or were simply covered with soil where planted conventionally. Both methods of protection proved suitable.
This is how the four rows of potatoes looked on Wednesday. Clearly the ones under weed control fabric look much further on. I think that might be because once the danger of frost had passed I removed the straw protecting the plants and the young shoots were once again in the light and able to grow away. In contrast the conventionally planted rows had to re emerge through the soil that had been protecting them. There’s plenty of weed seeds just starting to germinated so some foliage will be covered again when I hoe between the rows and earth up the potatoes. How all this will affect what is growing beneath the surface I won’t know for a few weeks yet when the potatoes will be ready for harvesting.