So, I haven’t picked my knitting needles up in a while, my dress still needs straps – which seem to be taking forever – and hemming, but I have been doing garden stuff. Most notably preparing for my birthday present from Doug, an arbour. This is a sort of covered over bench but it’s also a little more than that. We’ve stained it in blue and hopefully it’ll be assembled this weekend. I’ve had to clear a corner of the lower garden to accommodate it which included moving my composter and transplanting a rose. I’m hoping the rose settles happily into its new spot. Mostly so that the wounds I sustained on my feet – one from a thorn, the other from a shovel – while moving it will have been worthwhile.
I have been growing some things. Some have worked out, others haven’t.
First up – lettuce.
Lovely Lettuce
More red coloured luttuce
The weird blue things in the soil are organic slug pellets. I hate slugs and snails. Even the ones with the cute dark spirals are their shells. They’re evil and munch away on things before I’ve had chance to have a taste myself.
This is the second batch grown in this self watering windowbox (it has a reservoir for water). The first lot were eaten all except for one seedling which after careful nurturing I discovered to be a weed. That really sucked but, it’s a hazard of gardening when you’re growing something new and don’t know what it looks like when it’s a young plant.
Basil – I started off with 23, count ’em, 23, basil seedlings. I now have 10 left. Damn slugs.
Hopes this grows fast - I want pesto!
My cauliflowers have been hit hard by aphids 🙁 I sprayed them with a soapy solution but it’s not helped.
Poor cauli
My corn is the strongest looking plant so far.
The hardiest of my three corn plants
I really want it to succeed. Even one ear of corn would be great, so fingers crossed.
Poor pumpkin. It’s been hit by aphids too. I’m not sure if I can rescue it.
Struggling pumpkin
This summer squash isn’t looking too bad but I’m still concerned about the aphids.
Healthyish squash
Another pest that I have to deal with, albeit a cute one, is Emma. She likes lying in the raised bed. As a result I lost some carrots. I went a bit overboard while sowing replacements and now the raised bed is full of little yellow carrot seedlings. I hope some of them survive. I have another self watering tub and am thinking of transferring some of them to that.
I also have some pepper seedlings
Pepper seedling
Smaller pepper seedling
and a very young Roma tomato.
This baby took a long time to germinate
I doubt that either of them are going to be able to do a great deal this summer, but, as always, we shall see.