Mini Herbs :(

After chasing up delivery of a herb collection I ordered in January for delivery in early March I finally received them this morning.

I'm amazed that a company sells such teeny tiny plug plants for the cost. I paid £6.95 for this

http://www.marshalls-seeds.co.uk/herb-plant-collection-pid2852.html

Look at the lovely established plants on the site. I wasn't expecting a huge established plant but I'm still shocked by the parcel that arrived.

The original plan was to chuck them straight into the herb bed, but I've potted them on for now to give them chance to establish first.

After all the hassles of repeatedly chasing customer service for some kind of ETA on my plants, plus the quality of the delivered product compared to other companies, I don't think I'll be using Marshalls again.

Flooding :o

There was a thunderstorm this evening and the front garden flooded out within about 30 minutes. The veg patch was ok, but we were worried for a while.

Chillies, Potatoes and Topless Men

My habaneros are germinating! Woohoo! 3 so far out of 6, so not too bad :)


We earthed up a couple of the Rooster potatoes in the bags as they were getting tall. The Charlotte in the raised bed are coming along nicely.



We prepped the last raised bed ready for some greenery. It has three rows of Rocket, three rows of Curly Kale and three rows of transplanted Spinach Beet.



The Bluebells looking lovely



Carrots and Parsnips coming along.



Cherry and Apple blossom


Some distance shots of the veg plot in action



Netting over the new bed to keep the birdies and foxes out.



Greenhouse bed shots



Investigating the logistics of removing the 'arse plant'. It's the root of the unknown bigger bush to the left of Steve, but left to it's own devices grows to be about 6 foot high and 6 foot wide restricting access to the recycling bins.



Abi decided it was more fun to watch from a distance



I agreed, phwoar






Steve had to pull up the paving in order to get as much out as possible, we put it back in place and poured sand into the cracks. There was a whole wheelbarrow worth of root removed.



My self harvested bell pepper seed having a think about germinating.



And we put 9 of the bigger tomato plants into growbags on the greenhouse floor :)

Wordle

Slugs and Strawberries

This week we've been mostly fighting the good fight against slug invaders! They've been nibbling at my radishes and attacking the chilli seedlings in the greenhouse.



We put some traps down to make sure it was the sluglings. We used an upturned bucket propped up with a brick, and some pieces of cardboard placed around the lawn and bits of soil.






And this is what we found



We made them squishy. Abi seemed to enjoy watching the squishing.



That night we decided to try yeast traps placed around the veggie plot, as according to 'the interwebs' this would be a good way to kill them.



It may have killed some, we're not really sure as the ones we placed outside had been knocked over and the contents eaten by foxes. The greenhouse traps were empty.



We gave up and are trying organic kid and pet friendly slug pellets while waiting for the Nematodes to be delivered ;)

In better news, the bluebells are about to bloom...




The rhubarb is starting to show some signs of life...



We planted three more strawberry plants kindly donated by a new friend. Her blog is in my recommended list to the right - http://countersthorpeallotment.blogspot.com/




The hops are growing at a rate of about 2 inches a day



And finally, the Charlottes are showing some growth too :)