GreenFly - A 'flylady style' gardening thread with weekly tasks to tame your garden

greenbee

I've been using the wool from cat food/veg box deliveries. This morning I noticed distinct slime trails over it in the runner bean bed... however, I'm hopefully that they'll make it. 

Nasturtium seeds sown in amongst the runners and the tall peas. More french bean and mange tout seeds sown (have lots of both). Some mange tout now appearing, so had one for breakfast. Courgettes starting to flower, so I should start picking baby ones sometime this week. Climbing courgettes and squash probably need feeding. 

Latest batch of sweet peas shoved into gaps in sweet pea pots (first lot planted are finally getting going, later ones are still looking very small), and small, dark-flowered nasturtiums sown around the edges of their pots. Outside looks lovely, but most of the veg plot and greenhouse is still in shade due to the wood to the east, and the garden near the house is shaded by the house to the south. 

I think I'm going to spend a few minutes looking at the garden before I start work. Tonight's plan is weedkilling and mowing. 

Brie

Big ICK warning!!!!


Darling OH decided he wanted to attract all the little robins right on to the little deck immediately outside the lounge doors.  Hmmm.  So he nabbed a big plastic yellow pot from the greenhouse that had come from a shop a couple of years back full of those tiny tete e tete narcissus.  The pot itself was shaped like a cracked egg - obviously intended as an Easter item.  

Anyhoo....he grabbed said pot and put about 2 inches of mixed seed in it and left it on the little deck.  Absolutely no interest from anyone including the pigeons.  (thank goodness, don't need to have to power wash the deck to rid the bird blobs.)   And it sat out there for some time, got rained on, sun shone on it, rain rain rain, sun, rain.  The other day I noticed the seeds were floating there was so much water in it so decided it best to be dumped and headed for the fair end of the garden where the chap with the mower rather scalped a bumpy bit.  Thought if things were sprouting they might as well help us out. 

Dumped the seed and looked in the pot to see there was still a solid layer of seeds stuck to it.  And then they all began to wiggle.  I suspect some flies took notice of the damp seeds and feasted and left their maggot eggs or whatever they are.  I gave the pot another couple of wacks to dump out some of the wigglers and then left the pot on the grass thinking they birds might enjoy a feast.  I don't know if they were particularly interested but every morning that seedy scalped mound is criss crossed with slime trails so someone's enjoying it all.  Just wish they'd stick to that and not bother my petunias!!

redofromstart

Oh yuck, can't abide maggots. A timely reminder to tidy up outside I think. 

themadvix

ooh EH, where did you find the deal on wool pellets? They shot up in price on the big river today.

Slinky

EssexHebridean said:

Haha Slinky - are you a "tastes of soap!" person?!

I think it has a metallic taste to it. Horrible stuff gets put on food as garnish and it's hard to tell the difference by look of coriander and flat leaved parsley.  I do use ground coriander seeds though as that tastes nothing like the parent leaves.

greenbee

After work I managed to get the mowing done as well as the watering. There's a bit more mowing to do, and some strimming. The current compost bin is looking a bit full (I mixed shredded wood/leaves which I have several builders' bags-full of in with the grass as I dumped it there) but hopefully it'll reduce fairly quickly in this weather. 

Hopefully the strimming and the rest of the mowing will get done tomorrow. Then I can re-spray on Thursday. Gardener comes on Friday so I need to make him a list - it includes laying more slabs by the greenhouse. 

EssexHebridean

themadvix said:

ooh EH, where did you find the deal on wool pellets? They shot up in price on the big river today.

That was where I bought from Vix - I paid £25.72 for a 10 litre tub which was by miles the cheapest I found. I just had a look over there and ouch, yes, it HAS gone up hasn't it. The 5 litre tub has gone from £16.60 when I looked the other day to over £20 now! It's the V1tax brand I've bought. while it smells strikingly sheepy, it does seem to be effective! (so far, at least!) 

Tomatoes are now staked and in their (hopefully) final positions - I did some shuffling around as I don't want to have to move them once they are larger just to be able to harvest them! I also sideshooted all the "normal" (rather than bush) ones so that job is done for a bit. Need to keep an eye on the bush ones ready for them needing feeding now as they all have quite a bit of flower on them.  the enthusiastic Jasmine got yet another haircut - it needs to learn that if it grows upwards, it will get to carry on it's business - but if it continues to grow outwards, then haircuts will keep happening! 

We discussed this morning what to sow in the currently "spare" trough and I think have decided on making it a third lambs lettuce (it's final chance - if this sowing doesn't do anything I will be binning the seed!), a third cut and come again salad and a third spinach. I'd ideally like to get that sorted tonight.

The last sowing of radishes are peeking through - plan is to harvest all the first sowing when we are ready to sow again, and use that space. The previous sowing of cut and come again is also beginning to look a bit happier, and I think FINALLY the herbs are beginning to accept that they might be willing to actually grow properly - we'll see on that, but fingers crossed. 

 

themadvix

Hmm... interesting. That's exactly what I was looking at and it wants me to pay £32.... wish I had a VPN. Sadly, I've had limited success with it this year (have literally removed slugs crawling over it), but it's still the best option I think. Definitely smells sheepy!

EssexHebridean

Wow - yes, I just checked the current price for the 10 litre tub I ordered and it's saying £32.90 for me as well - jeez, that's an increase in just a couple of days! I tell you what though, it looks like there is quite a shortage of it at the moment 0- I just googled for results outside of Big River and found a LOT of people showing out of stock., Sadly including this place - at that price, I would have had their hand off, even if we WOULD have had to find somewhere to store it! https://www.jamiesonbrothers.com/vitax-slug-gone-20-l-bag

Slinky

There was a thing on the lunchtime news yesterday on BBC1 about the amount of slugs, and wool pellets were mentioned. Maybe that's the reason they've gone out of stock or up in price.  I must say I tried them round my hostas and haven't noticed much difference apart from my wallet.