phew! We had two gorgeous gardening days this week just gone and every moment out there was fantastic. Spurred on by a gift of a small bag of mushroom compost and the fantastic achievements of our neighbours with the stuff, I drove out of town and bought some mushroom compost and something called 'zoomgro'. I'm going to see which I like best. My current gardening enthusiasm and the desire to grow compost hungry things like zucchinis and pumpkins have necessitated buying in some compost.
I'm transplanting my tomatoes outside slowly. The idea being a particularly rough night won't strike when every single one is new to the ground soil. I've been finding loads of huge healthy worms in the areas which I dug bokashi into and then covered with pea straw in winter. After the grave warnings about blight I've read combined with our humid climate, I'm taking care to plant my tomatoes with extra large gaps between them - easily a metre apart. In between I'll companion plant (need to get that book out of the library again) - basil, carrots, something else.
The potatoes are looking fantastic. The ones in the raised bed are doing much better than the ones in the tyres. I've been mounding them with peastraw and have high hopes for a good crop. My second planting of peas has been more successful. I'm pretty sure the blackbirds (fearless blighters) ate the first seeds and so this time I protected them with fizzy bottles until they had germinated and got a little established. They are planted in between rows of potatoes and now I've got a teepee of bamboo stakes set up for them to climb.
I have found the 'beneficial insect blend' doesn't work for me when planted direct into the ground as I don't know what is weed and what is beneficial. So I've reverted to raising the seed in small tubs which I can either transplant or move around the garden to where it seems most needed.
The slug population has been rising during the wet and I'm thinking of resorting to pellets in non-food growing areas. If anyone knows of biodiversity problems using slug pellets could cause, please feel welcome to put your case in the comments section of this post.
Some strawberries survived total neglect in a pot outside all winter and now have fruit on, so I've treated them to a new home in zoomgro compost in a tyre. With chickenwire on top to foil the cheeky blackbirds. I'm finding the tyres good for squashing lawn/weed growth underneath and making it easier for me to create more garden. In a ramshackle way, I'm creating more and more garden along one fence and I've got designs on the adjacent fence also.
Out the front I've started to dismantle an old fence which is serving neither practical nor aesthetic function and I'll use the boards for raising the current garden beds for next year.
Where happiness is lurking
1 week ago
1 comment:
I don't know so much about biodiversity issues, but many gardeners find the chemicals even in the so-called organic slug pellets undesirable in their gardens. Other people complain about them not working well.
I don't know if you have them, but there is such a thing as beneficial slugs:
http://toads.wordpress.com/2007/10/04/a-leopard-in-the-garden/
Together with birds (which often eat slugs) or other animals that might eat the pellets, there is always the possibility they could harm beneficial elements of your garden. I don't have any idea of the wildlife in your garden, but I would guess this isn't a significant risk for you.
One blogger recently referred to her slug problem as not really a slug problem, but a duck deficiency. In the long run, you could think of keeping chickens (which eat slugs), but this obviously isn't something you are going to arrange tomorrow.
If you are looking for other natural alternatives, some people find copper barriers work well. I plan to try these this year for the first time.
I think if you have a slug problem now, and you want a quick solution, nothing is going to beat the convenience of a box of slug pellets!
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