Protection

In a bid to keep the nasties off of the veg (having discovered that the ants crawling over the runner beans were farming the aphids and thus protecting them!), we've decided to use extra-fine netting. Now, when we look out the window it looks as if there are three white ghosts residing on the lawn. The big leaves which you can see are the spinach plants. I think we've left them for too long and should have harvested them a while ago -especially as they have started to "go to seed" i.e. flower. Once that happens they could be sprouting up everywhere!!

We've also planted magnolias as their flowers encourage other insects such as lacewings and ladybirds which will eat the aphids. The four we have planted look a bit pathetic - tiny little things amongst the climbing beans. But once they start flowering they'll be the kings of the patches!

We've put three new runner bean plants in as, for the first lot, it all became a bit too much. So rather than let them struggle on and not produce good food, we got rid of them. Hopefully the new ones will grow quickly up the 6ft canes we've put in, and come summer, it'll be beans galore.

I've taken a picture of the horrible bindweed that is everywhere. It looks like it is being attacked by slugs. So they are good for one thing at least. Nasty stuff:

And we've also discovered that we have mint in one of the borders. I looked away for about 30 secs and it is now about 2ft tall! It can be invasive, so I'm going to prune it to keep it in check. Either that or let the bind weed smother it.

Let battle commence

The aphids are out eating my blackcurrants. The slugs are out attacking anything with large green leaves (most of our salads and the pak choi). However as organic gardeners, we can't resort to chemical spraying which is a real shame. Instead we have unleashed nematodes into the vegetable patches. Give it a week and they'll be eating the slugs causing death, destruction and mayhem to the slimey buggers.

Lemon grass and basil

The lemon grass seedlings are getting on okay. They seem to be growing quite slowly, and I have to confess, I have no idea what they will look like as "adults". Reading the veg book, I now know that they can grow up to 1.5 metres tall which is pretty big. However they do better in a greenhouse, which is why I repeat my claim that I think we need one... Or we could get a shed that doubles up as a greenhouse....? Mmmmm. I'll have to do some research.

The basil looks like it's struggling a little. Only one of them has had a good spurt since being repotted in the newspaper pots. However as you can get basil everywhere, I don't really mind if they don't make it.

The pic shows the basil in the background and lemongrass in the foreground. Lemongrass, funnily enough, looks like grass.

It has been raining quite hard here for the last two hours and I popped outside in my waterproofs for a potter around. The onions in the veggie patch look a bit sorry for themselves having taken a bit of battering from the wind. I also think that the runner beans have a case of halo blight - a lethal bacterial infection which requires digging and burning!!! The blackcurrant bush is fighting a losing battle against the aphids. I really need to give it a good going over and pick them all off. Although it's a bit of a big job!

Chillies and sweet peppers

I think I am in love with my chilli plants (and the sweet pepper ones too). They look so strong and healthy! Apparently they are one of the easiest plants to grow from seed, but that doesn't stop me from getting great satisfaction from seeing them get taller. They are doing very well in their little handmade newspaper pots.

I'm not sure when to put them outside. We bought a cold-frame, but typically there was one pane of glass missing so we're not sure whether to kick up a fuss or make do with a plastic pane borrowed from a cheap picture frame instead. I also think we need to invest in a greenhouse - at the moment our dining room is being used as a nursery for the seedlings, but that isn't really what it was made for! The table is covered in compost and newspaper and we haven't got round to painting that room yet as a result.

Bean bean beans

Mr has planted the first of his young outside. I am a bit worried as they haven't experienced the cold as we've kept them indoors since birth. Maybe they need a blanket?

Anyhow, the runner beans and dwarf beans are now outside coping all on their own. Mr has built the runner beans a couple of cane supports (which are like 1-dimensional tepee's made out of canes. Bear with me as my camera is broken so I have no pics). They seem to be doing well although they look eerily like the horrible bind weed that is threatening to take over the rest of the garden. In fact I have become slightly obsessed by weeds and find myself googling for hours various threats to our "land". In particular I am fascinated by "Japanese Knotweed" that takes a vigilante campaign of three years to get rid of! Mere weedkiller is not enough; you need a three-pronged attack of black bin liners, weedkiller and strong boots to stamp out any new growth. Wow. I've seen this knotweed - a lot of it grows by railway lines (it's a fast grower and helps prevent landslides onto train tracks) - and I can now spot it from a distance of 50 miles.

In fact the last few weeks have been spent waging war on unwanted green beasties in the garden. I've been undecidely un-green using weedkiller (not on the veg mind) to kill off the weeds. Whenever I pop out to check on the plants, I like to utter the odd "Die!" in the direction of the little critters. It seems to work. However I am at a loss to know what to do with the green fly that have infected my blackcurrant plants. (How DARE they). I've wiped them all off and covered the leaves in vegetable oil (as per the guidance in the gardening book). None have come back since I did this a week ago, but the leaves have gone a bit see-through - a bit worrying. And now there are black flies getting stuck in the oil. What is a gardener to do!

This evening I went out to visit the plants and still had my ipod on from the train journey. What a surreal experience to be stroking the onion leaves, yanking out shoots of brambles whilst listening to Bohemian Rhapsody.