Now all I have to do is wait!

And for those of you that know me well, you will be aware that patience is definitely not one of my virtues ( if I have any at all.) 


The reason for my wait? Well yesterday I planted the final seedling from the greenhouse into the beds outside. The beds are well and truly full now, so its no longer up to me what happens, now I am relying on Mother Nature. 


After my last post, it was time to give the leaning tower of Barton a bit of company, so with my newly acquired tower building skill I set too. The last experience showed that 4 stakes were not enough to keep it upright, and using gardening wire just pulled it out of shape. So this time, five bamboo canes and string, it was certainly much easier and quicker. In no time at all there were three cane towers in the bed. 

The Peas were soon in and next was the Rocket.

Next on the list - Spinach

Closely followed by Tomato's 

A nice green hairnet, to save the Spinach from the Pidgeon's 

A random planting of Kos Lettuce

A couple more hairnets, 

and it was done. My project started in the depths of winter is now established. My first ever fully planted Vegetable Garden! Cue trumpet Fanfare!!!! 

What a difference to the header picture on this blog. No longer a clean tidy sterile garden, now a living, growing thing. Once it gets a bit more established I shall change that picture. 

Don't think that's the end though, Oh no, I have lots of other things to bore you with. Of course, I have to share the first pick of everything with you, and on that note, I have had more success. The first 6 strawberries were wonderful, and we have had quite a few more since then, but now it was the turn of the Italian salad leaves. 

By Saturday, they were of sufficient size and quantity to make the ultimate sacrifice. A quick snip with the scissors and they were in a bowl on the way the the kitchen. 

A very vigorous wash, to ensure there was no lurking protein in the form of slug, snail, ant, etc and then a quick spin 

They looked lovely, so an hour or so in the fridge whilst I did other things .

and then onto the plate for Dinner.

Delicious. Shame the tomato's in the greenhouse aren't ready yet, but we have them to look forward to.

On to the Animals. Margot is continuing in her efforts to escape on a daily basis. I have given up now. If she wants to be out then I let her, its usually not long before she is trying to get back in with Bab's and Geri and as all the plants are now established, she can't do too much damage. Because of her frequent escape attempts, I am considering renaming her after Steve McQueen's character in The Great Escape. He was called "Hilts"" but was known as "The Cooler King" I think if I start calling her that instead, she may begin to think she will be joining her pre packed relatives, that I get from tesco, in the freezer. That may cause her to think a little before she heads off down the garden!

And then the Puppy. I know he is growing but he is still a baby. This has been his first experience of warm weather and he has found it a bit hot. So the other day when I was watering the plants (No we don't have a hosepipe ban) he decided to cool off a bit and have a nice cold drink.

 

And finally we had a day out on Monday and went to Exbury Gardens . The gardens are in full  bloom at the moment and it was a beautiful sight, here are some of my highlights. 

Hope you enjoyed the blooms as much as I did. Oh well time to do some inside jobs, Banana loaf in the oven and washing ready to go outside. Enjoy your week and don't work too hard!

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.