Fruit, Veg, Flowers and Slugs

The Christmas Potato experiment, for those of you that have been following developments, was a bit of a damp squib. A Christmas cracker with no crack, the Christmas present you smile about but really, did not want; a toilet roll dolly, a jar of wrinkle cream, comedy socks! I got a few spuds, but nowhere near enough for a festive feast as you can see from the photo; the Eskimo Carrots you will note from the picture have been a success again and they are on the list of seeds I am ordering for 2025. I think I probably sowed the seed potatoes too late. I will try again next year. Cheers 🍺

With the British weather really doing its worse of late there has been very little time or chance to actually get in the garden or on the vegetable plot to get anything done, other than checking fencing and clearing debris that has blown in! I will begin sowing seeds soon and over the next few weeks every spare inch in the conservatory and on windowsills around the house will be taken up with seed trays full of seedlings as ever in January and February. I do have another little project though that I will be working on in the potting shed out of the wind, rain and cold temperatures. There are, apparently, over 250 types of bee in the UK, there are twenty-four types of bumblebee alone, and they are incredibly important little creatures. Around 90% of UK bee species are solitary bees, a group that includes mason bees, mining bees and leaf-cutter bees amongst others. Solitary bees aren’t like honey bees that live in hives. As their name suggests, they make their nests on their own and lay ...