And so the battle begins!

I am a mild mannered person most of the time, but I am determined to make sure that nothing will spoil my vegetable garden. 

It would appear that carrot fly is going to be one of my major adversaries. I planted carrots some weeks ago and as usual having never done this before I just got on with it. It now appears that I should have taken steps straight away to protect my plant from this predator. 

After some very useful advice from another gardener named Sue  at Green Lane Allotments , I realised that immediate action needed to be taken. First port of call, a bit of research on the internet. It would seem that the fly is attracted to the smell of the carrots, caused when the leaves are bruised. As I had yet to thin my carrots there was still hope that they had not found my straggly little line of seedlings. Enviromesh seemed to be the answer so once again, online I went and found what I needed. 

It arrived yesterday so off I went to protect my carrots from the fly. 

Before this though, I had to thin them, so after waiting weeks for them to get to a reasonable size, I now found myself pulling most of them out again. As they were so small it wasn't worth keeping them to replant. I was now up against the clock to save them from my new enemy, The aroma of my now bruised carrot leaves was floating away on the wind attracting them to my garden. 

First a frame, I had some of my Lidl poly tunnel supports laying unused , these would be perfect. 

Then after a quick battle with a huge piece of mesh, in the greenhouse, it was cut to size and in place over the carrots. 

So if the fly's have managed to get to the carrots, thats a real shame but hopefully I have done enough to prevent any further damage. 


The next job on my list was one I have been putting off. Time to bank the potatoes. I don't know why I was worried about it because it took me 10 minutes and was pretty simple. 

The tomato plants that were amongst the first seeds I planted, were now getting too big for the pots. Its still far too early to put them outside so I decided to use a grow bag inside the greenhouse. 


This is something I do know how to do as in my last tiny garden this was the only way I could grow tomatoes. A few minutes work and they were done.

Just in case you didn't recognise it I labelled my asparagus, shame we can't eat it this year

Next on the list, as herb garden. I had planted Basil, Corriander, and Dill and they are growing nicely in the warm, but I popped up to the garden centre to buy Rosemary, Thyme and Sage.

They went straight in outside, to be joined by the others at a later, warmer date.


And last but certainly not least, the strawberry bed. It has been nicely wrapped and protected from the elements for a couple of weeks now. But after a particularly nasty storm a couple of nights ago the poly tunnel was looking a bit battered and saggy. I took he plastic off the sort it out and was delighted to see these little beauties.

I don't think we will be supplying Wimbledon but it looks like we will be enjoying some lovely puddings in the summer. 


You may be wondering about my last post, where it appeared that aliens had landed in the chicken house. Well you will be pleased to know that about two days later, they returned to the planet from whence they came, and egg production returned to normal. Margot celebrated by making another bid for freedom. 

And finally Gibson. Our tiny sweet puppy is growing on a daily basis and developing his own personality, which at the moment is heading towards stubborn. As he grows so do his teeth so Jim is having to come up with inventive ways to prevent him chewing the house. His current favourite is a large dog toy called a Kong which Jim fills with his dog food which has been soaked in water to go soggy. It then spends 24 hours in the freezer. It takes Gibson hours to get the stuff out and keeps him very occupied. 

No garden time this weekend as we have a family event, one of our number has reached a landmark birthday so we are all off out for a nice lunch. 

Hurrah its raining..

I never thought I would be happy to see the rain, but as  we haven't had anything reasonable here since Christmas, I was pretty pleased to see the overcast wet windy day I was presented with when I opened the curtains this morning. It hasn't stopped a hosepipe ban in lots of the South though, but amazingly not here. Well done to our local very small water company. Lets see how long it lasts! 

Not much been going on outside. Thats the trouble with growing stuff, If it doesn't want to grow, it won't. 

The potatoes have come on and are almost ready to be banked. 

The shallots are now at a very presentable height,

and I have more tomato plants than I know what to do with.. ( Lots of Green Tomato Chutney in September) 

I also have lots of trays that look like this, hopefully the next time I take pictures they will have something growing in the cells 

The postman arrived yesterday with a large packet.. Whats this? I had ordered so many things I have lost track of whats arrived.  Rhubarb! and Asparagus. Two of my favourite things. They each have one of the smaller beds for themselves outside the greenhouse. I can't wait to get out and plant them. 

And finally what Gibson has been up to this week. We went for a walk in the New forest an he met his first wild pony. 

He wasn't really sure what to a make of him. Another day he decided he wanted to join me as a gardener, so while I wasn't looking thought he would help out with a couple of tubs near the house. 

Obviously he doesn't like winter pansies. Thinking that he may not have been my favourite puppy, he went inside and decided to post himself back to Florida,  in a box that had recently arrived from my oldest friend in America... 

Happy Easter, don't eat too much chocolate.

Water Butts and Eggs Galore!

So it happened, on the day that the two extra water butts were delivered it was announced there will be a hosepipe bank in the South of England, but happily at the end of the report came the rider, except in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight! It doesn't rain here much at all but our local water company obviously has looked after its supplies better than elsewhere. 

Better safe than sorry though, its bound to happen here eventually so to save as much water as possible I can now store 600 litres.

The original Butt was placed next to the Greenhouse and now we had to fit two more in next to it. No Problem

An hours work and it was all done. 

Just as a slight aside, I did mention that the picture quality would not be so good for a while because I had broken Jim's camera. Well I found a company online called First Digital Repairs who repaired and returned it within a week. Very impressive service at very good price, especially as all the major camera shops I went to said that it couldn't be fixed and had to be replaced with a new one. So if you break your camera, give it a try. I had apparently got grit in the lens mechanism! Normal picture quality will be resumed from the next post. 

on to Egg news. After Bab's eggstraordinary day on Sunday her eggcellent work has continued and she has produced a small, but perfectly formed egg every day this week. I had the first egg for my breakfast on Monday. I went for scrambled.

It was delicious, As you can see the yolk was bright orange and it made lovely scrambled eggs. Jim had a little  taste, he gets his first home laid egg when I finish this blog, as we have saved the last two eggs to have them poached this morning. Here they are waiting to go in the pan.

And finally for today just a few pics of Chicken/Puppy action, Normally Gibson teases the chickens but yesterday it was the other way round, poor puppy was beside himself

Have a great day I'm off for eggs and then a bit of greenhouse time.

A quiet week in the garden

After weeks of hard work, moving and building things, suddenly we have loads of spare time. a few smaller jobs needed doing, like repairing the lawn which we had trampled to within an inch of its life,  and starting a few more seed in the greenhouse, but apart from that little has happened. 

I did get another shed though! so now we have a shed, a summerhouse and a rather sweet little tool store that looks like a sentry box! 

It needed a coat  of preservative when it arrived so I got to work painting, it wasn't long before the chickens decided to come and see what I was up too. For some reason they took a fancy to the plastic bag it was standing on whilst I was painting!

They obviously have a taste for plastic..

The shed was soon placed in it new spot in the allotment and very nice it looks too. of course as soon as I went to put stuff in it, I found that because of the shelf my hoe and rake don't fit. Oh well .

I finished painting my cable reels and also cleaned up the bench that the last house owners left behind and I now have a sunny spot to sit and look at my growing plants. 

We have ordered two more water butts because they weather people all seem to think we are going to have a drought, I don't want all my hard work to be in vain because I can't use my hose. 

I did also plant my first crop in the raised beds as the packet said they had to be in, in February. Seems a touch early to be planting outside but I followed instructions. The left over pallets came in useful again and Jim cut me 20 small bits to make labels out of so I know what I have planted where.

I have looked every day but no sign of them yet. 

Finally the blog would not now be complete without a few pictures of stupid chickens.. Margot decided she could climb trees and I wandered out one afternoon to see this. 

I have no idea how long she had been there, but I left her for another hour before rescuing her from her perch. Hopefully she has learned her lesson and won't try again! 

Its Puppy day tomorrow so we are up early to go and collect Gibson and bring him home. Watch this space for pictures.