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.