A sunny weekend

What else is there to be but curl up and have a good sleep under the apple tree. Ok if you are a duck but not the case if you are being taken over by Fat Hen, Bindweed and a pesky Rabbit.


I have had disaster this year with beans as about half have all been chewed off about six inches from the ground. The ones that have survived are growing like mad as they have so much light and space but that is not the point.

It seems we have a rabbit, and he had the cheek to wander along the path to face me. If only I had had a bit of netting I could have caught it in the style of gladiators, but all I could do was stand and should 'NICK' at the top of my voice. Unfortunately, that only made the rabbit run for cover, so he is still there and still eating my beans.

I have left the gate open so either he will get out or 10 of his mates will go and join him. We will have to see.


Thankfully, due to the sterling work of Nick and Matt in building the brassica cage, no damage has been done in there.

The cabages I planted late are growing well and, now that I have weeded them so are the sprouts, kale and red cabbage.







The tub of weeds you can see here is from one bed only. Most of it is Fat Hen which is an annual weed and as long as it hasn't gone to seed can go into the compost bin.

Talking of which, having mowed the grass and the veg waste from all the cooking, we have half filled the third one already.

The large green compost bin has been sitting for 18 months, so come the autumn should be beautiful compost, to sift and add to the beds.




We are getting a good supply of cucumber from the greenhouse, but sadly this one was growing close to the glass and got behind one of the struts. I hadn't seem it because of the leaves so it just kept on growing either side of the metal strip. I had to very gentry ease it out otherwise it could have broken the glass.









We have never had much success with carrots. Either the carrot root fly got to them so they were full of holes, or the shallow soil meant that they forked or were short and stumpy.

This year we added a lot of compost to the bed to make it deeper and I sowed later so avoided the fly. The result - lovely long, wonderfully smelling and tasting carrots.









More from the brassica cage. Most of the lettuce went to seed so was bitter. Not that the ducks minded as they love it like that. The one salad leave that has been a great surprise is the chinese leaves, which just keep on growing long and sweet. We have had a good supply and I would highly recommend.

I have started sowing winter salad leaves in the place where I took out the seeded ones, so we should have a good supply throughout the next few months.






I was worried about the sweetcorn as it hasn't grown very tall but cobs are forming so I am haping that they will be just as good as last year.













The cabbages are hearting up nicely and I have resorted to organic slug pellets under here as there is no chance of birds getting in.

There is sign around the edges of nibbles but it seems to be keeping most of them at bay.









I have also been watering regularly with rhubarb mix. This is rhubarb leaves soaked in a tob of water. The resulting mixture, if watered over the crops gets rid of caterpillas and stops the cabbage white laying. It seems to have worked too. The red cabbage is the same, it seems to be only the outside leaves that have been chewed.










I have never been able to grow cauliflowers before as they always 'blow' before I get to them. We have five beauties although for the time they take to grow and the amount of space they take up, I am not sure it is worth it.