Fruit, Veg, Flowers and Slugs

It is that lovely time of the year, the first Garden Peas of the summer are being picked!  I know, it's not huge news in the grand scheme of things and with all that is going on in this crazy world right now but it is a reason to be cheerful and should be celebrated. This year I am growing  Pea Bingo  which is  a  dwarf  e arly  m aincrop  variety  growing no higher than about two-and-a-half feet; I have them in some large ornamental stone pots. I sowed the first batch in fibre pots back in March and they were brought on indoors until planted out in late April. A second batch was direct sown at that time, they are coming along nicely finding their way up the pea sticks , and the third batch, that was planned to be sown in May, will be sown this week; a little later than planned but it will prolong the harvest nicely. I have hopefully timed the sowings right and probably will have only a few excess Peas to store. Freezing your Garden  Peas couldn't be simpler .  Pop your Peas in

The Garden and Vegetable Patch will really be coming to life by now and over the next few weeks and months there will be plenty of jobs to do but also plenty of enjoyment to be had.  The display from your spring bulbs such a Daffodils will almost certainly be over by now. I grow a lot of  my bulbs  in pots to allow me to place them where I want in the garden, though I also have a few throughout the beds and naturalised under the Cherry Tree. I always give mine one last feed when watering  to encourage a good display next year before moving those in pots into a corner of the garden, out of sight, to allow the foliage to die back naturally which also helps feed the bulb for next year.  High on my list of priorities at this time of year is checking the Lilies for Lily Beetle and their larvae as they can strip your plants of foliage almost overnight! I had a problem earlier in the spring with a Squirrel nibbling the top off of three of the emerging bulbs so they now won’t grow and flower t

I have touched upon the subject of wildlife friendly gardening in the past on this blog and in the column I write for the Romford Recorder. It is a subject I feel quite strongly about and would, and do, encourage everybody to garden with wildlife in mind as much as possible.   I am writing this piece having just spent half-an-hour watching the Blue Tits dart back and forth across the garden to and from the nest box in which there are clearly a number of hungry mouths to feed. It is very satisfying to watch them pop their heads out of the next box and fly straight to the Runner Bean bed, where they are clearly finding plenty of little beasties to feed to their young, and fly straight back to the nest. At this time of year you do need to remember to check your plants for Aphids such as Greenfly and Blackfly and rub off any you find before they become an infestation. There are hundreds of products on the market to deal with Aphids but the easiest, quickest and most environmentally friend

It says on the catch line of this blog that it is  chronicling my successes and failures as an amateur gardener on my plot in Essex on the veg patch and in the flower bed, well the first major failure has happened and the Limoncito and Black Cherry seedlings have all wilted and died. I think, despite being inside under cover, the lack of light and warmth over the last few days has done for them. With hindsight, a wonderful thing, I probably should have kept them on the windowsill of my back bedroom until stronger rather than moving them to the unheated Conservatory; I may also have made the classic error of overwatering.  It is annoying but most years something goes wrong, you can't get it right all the time and that is all part and parcel of gardening.  On the plus side, the Gigantomo and Beef Steak Tomato plants are growing by the day in the Greenhouse and strong and healthy - sometimes it is just bad timing, these seeds were of course sown earlier than the  Limoncito  and  Bl

We are into Spring and there is a plethora of jobs that we can be getting on with in the garden over the next few weeks. By now you will have begun mowing the lawn and may have noticed some bare or damages patches. Now is a great time to sow grass seed to fill those gaps before summer.    Remember to check your plants for Aphids such as Greenfly and Blackfly and rub off any you find before they become an infestation. There are hundreds of products on the market to deal with Aphids but the easiest, quickest and most environmentally friendly answer to the problem is to squash them by running your finger and thumb along the stem of the plant. On my Runner Beans each year, which will get attacked by Blackfly you can be sure, I find blasting them off with the hose works nicely as well. For wildlife friendly pest control you are actually best to let Mother Nature get on with it as much as possible. By not using sprays you will be amazed by the number of friendly little beasties that will ar

The weather being kind and the forecast mild(ish) I was able to get a good few hours in on the plot this weekend and get some seeds sown and seedlings into the Vegetable Patch.  The Runner Bean seedlings that had been hardening off in the Greenhouse and then the Wood Store are now planted in their bed. Many will say it's too early but they are looking fine and with little threat of frost in the forecast I am confident they will begin to romp away in the warmer days ahead. The second sowing remain in the Conservatory for now but will be moved to the Wood Store to harden off in the near future before joining the others in the Bean Bed.  The Leek seedlings have also been planted out in a couple of rows. A simple task as the seeds were sown in fibre pots so they were just dropped into a dibbed hole, pot and all, before the soil filled in back around them. Being a little old fashioned the lines are plumb line straight and all being well I have have two perfect lines of big fat Leeks c

We had just about every type of weather known to man at my plot on Friday last week. A little snow shower to start the day, wind and rain, a lovely sunny lunchtime followed by a little more snow and then hailstones!  I have held off from sowing any seeds or planting out any seedlings as yet and that decision has proved to be the correct one with temperatures below freezing over the weekend. I have said it before, it is very easy to get caught out by Fools Spring and the last couple of weeks has just confirmed that, beautiful sunny and warm weather for a few days followed by wintery cold conditions almost changing over night. I have seen a few posts on Social Media of young plants decimated by frosts and snow, it so easily done, I have certainly done it in the past, but sometimes you have to fight that desire to plant and sow and wait for Mother Nature.  Space in the Conservatory and Greenhouse is at a premium with so many seedlings waiting to go out onto the plot. The forecast for this