french bean – Enviro-Mentalist

Slugfest! A Veg Garden Update.

Just a quick update about the garden. First the bad news: Pak Choi , all eaten, brassicas, almost all gone, coriander and parsley – just about holding on – all the victim of slugs and snails.

On the positive side, the chillis are still growing well, and the blackberry has been prolific, providing lots of great opportunities to improve my bee photography skills, the first of the berries have just started to blush.
The French beans and courgettes have managed to survive various slug attacks and the beans are starting to flower.

I have popped a few chard plants in the back garden which I have grown from seed as the ones I sowed directly do not seem to have grown. We will see if they survive a rainy night and a visit from Mr Slug and his army of friends. This is in contrast to the front garden where three of the chard seeds that I planted have grown well and survived the ravages of wind, rain and the aforementioned slugs. I decided to grow rainbow chard after seeing them growing every winter at Ryton Organic Gardens, unfortunately, I have never tasted it, never cooked it and am not sure what I am going to do with it. Still, I have popped a few more seeds in and am hoping it will brighten the front garden in the gloomy winter months.

Garden Update

So, the courgette is dead, the beans are under attack, has it all gone wrong? Fortunately, no it hasn’t. I did a quick stocktake today and a few days with some sun and no rain has allowed the plants to put a bit of a growth spurt on and stick two fingers up to Mr Slug.

The courgette that was planted in the tub is still there and starting to grow, although it is destined to be lonely because the seed I planted to replace the aforementioned marrowy martyr did not manage to shrug off its seed case and has since withered and died.

The beans, both types, are starting to really take off (this being one of the lessons I should have learnt from reading Monty Don’s My Roots where he states that there is no point planting beans out until June, point taken, mental note made for next year).

The tomatoes are doing well and the first flower buds have appeared on the Gardener’s Delight.

The potatoes are also growing well with the Charlottes and Shetland Blacks in the tubs earthed up as far as they can be. I will be interested to see which of these give the best combination of flavour and yield (along with Mimi) as we do not really want to grow quite so many next year.

The chillis and sweet peppers have in the main survived their potting on and are lined up, awaiting transfer to the front garden where they will get more sun. As ever, I have grown too many of these, so may have to give some away.

Today I also potted on the Cavolo Nero that I am growing for Winter harvesting. This is the first time I have grown any kind of kale and so am really growing by trial and error. I am not sure if they should be potted on, but they look a bit little and defenceless at the moment and so I am unwilling to pop them in the ground just yet.

Main failures so far this year – radish, should have thinned them, salad leaves, Mr Slug strikes again.

Plant that came back from the dead – thornless blackberry, bought too early, left in a pot for too long, looked like it wasn’t going to survive, now coming into flower.

Sluggy Devastation

Well, it just goes to show how much I know, my advice to grow courgettes and rhubarb if you want something that doesn’t require much attention and will repay you many times over seems to be a little ironic at the moment. Â

We had neglected our rhubarb for a couple of years whilst we were re-landscaping the back garden and so had it imprisoned in a pot for the entire time. Â It is planted in the ground now, but is looking a bit weak and feeble still (although it is growing).

Â A couple of weeks ago, when the weather was warm I optimistically planted out a courgette hoping it would get a head start whilst there seemed to be a ridiculously low number of slugs around. Â Well, what a fool I was, as the picture shows the sluggy grapevine seems to have put the word around quite quickly that I had dared plant my crops out and as soon as the damp weather (damp being a bit of an understatement, it feels a little like monsoon season at the moment) appeared so did the slugs. Â

Â I know that I could prevent this with little blue pellets, but we are trying to be as organic as possible and are trying to encourage the ecosystem (although at this rate I may start charging the frogs board and lodgings as they are not earning their keep). Â I have another courgette in reserve, but I will plant this in a pot this weekend.On the plus side, I have planted my beans in various parts of the garden, and some of them are still in one piece. Â

Garden Produce Update

The warm weather in the last week has allowed everything to put on a big growth spurt and left me with decision as to whether it is time to give them their independence and allow them to leave the safety of their home as they know it and plant my veg out. Â I took the picture below a week ago and they look even better now.

There is part of me thinks that they are doing so well it is time they were allowed a bit more room, but the other part is filled with anxiety about the dreaded slugs. Last year all my beans and sweetcorn went in the first week, and it is a miracle that the courgette didn’t follow. Then there is the worry that I am leaving it too late (although Monty Don claims not to plant his beans out until June). I think I will leave it to the weekend, then I can keep a watch over them – I can’t leave it much longer as the courgettes have flower buds coming. So this weekend I resolve to plant out the courgettes, sweetcorn, beans and tomatoes.
We planted the potatoes a week ago, we are trying Charlotte (an old favourite and the only one we have grown before), Mimi (being trialled on Gardener’s World) and Shetland Black (bought them and enjoyed them from Waitrose), the Shetland Blacks are growing already!

Another surprise in the garden this week has been the appearance of the first fruit on the gooseberry.Â Â The joy from this has been tempered somewhat by the discovery by my better half that the sawfly larvae are back and munching away the leaves. My better half has kindly checked every leaf and removed a goodly quantity which are now imprisoned and probably going to become bird food! Does everyone have such lazy birds, I have fed them all year round and now, unless their dinner is served up to them, they don’t seem to be interested! I may make them work for their food in future!