Vegmonkey and the Mrs.

Being a primary school teacher means i get more extended holidays than most people. This enables me to spend lots of time out in the garden during the main planting time of Easter, but also to get on top of things during the Winter season. The last day or so has been spent looking at the successes, failures and ‘missing parts!’ of last year’s veg planting plan and doing lots of scribbling and crossing out to improve it.

The main changes are:

1. The plot will be a lot fuller (i forgot to plant many ‘leaves’ this year and hardly any winter veg that grew.)

2. There will be no flowers growing in the beds (they will have their own pots…somewhere as they seemed to take over, particularly the sunflowers, as the beneficial insects are only good if there is space to grow!)

3. Potatoes will be added into the rotation (i’ve decided that First Earlies can go in before the leeks need the space.)

4. The colours have been changed to make the plan easier to read.

I have included the ‘winter veg planner’ below. Click it or print to make it easier to read. This is the best quality i could get it before it became too large for the page! Things like tomatoes, sweetcorn, lettuces etc and herbs will all be grown in pots, hanging baskets or in the beds where there is space (!?). I will add a section for these later next week. I know a few people have been following some parts of the plan. I hope that things have worked, and would love to hear about any successes, failures, questions or recommendations!

I know the plan may look a bit ‘much’ but i know that this way, we are more likely, via the 4 year rotation, to have less diseases in each veg family, to know exactly what and where we can grow and to grow plants in an order so that the previous years plants prepare the soil for the next years!

 Happy planning!

The worst pest in our garden is slugs. Without question. But that wasn’t always the case. In fact, up until 2 weekends ago, the worst pets was cats (i do like them when they aren’t pooing, we used to have two little men ourselves). I had plans to build huge cane frames to go over the beds, to cover them in enviromesh and to remove them when we were home. The purpose of this was going to be to keep the cat off the beds.

Every morning, after my cup of tea and toast i have a wander out back, only to usually find a new piece of dirt turned over and a pile of crusty turd.

Two weeks ago i bought a sonic cat scarer. It has a very high frequency that we can’t hear, but the cats can. When they walk across in front of it, it sets the alarm off, and the cats run away. I make sure i turn it off when i’m outside so not to waste the battery but every now and again i leave it on. I know i wouldn’t want to go to the loo in a garden with a shrill siren ringing in my ears!

The result is that we are able to keep the beds completely uncovered! No expensive covers and no poo!

(There was one mess last week, but i’ve found that if i move the ‘machine’ every couple of days it confuses the little blighters!)

It did cost £30 and i will need to replace the battery every now and again but that is a small price to pay for seedlings that are actually allowed to grow!

I’ve read lots on forums and in magazines and think this actually works!

 Now, to work on those slugs…more nematodes  think!

We are in quite an enclosed space in our plot, and don’t really have much of a problem with pests. So far we’ve had some powdery mildew on our pumpkins and courgettes, next doors cat making a mess (which has been put off by the chilli powder i put down!) and slugs and snails which everyone has, and are easily prevented with copper tape.

After getting excited about the green growth on the parsnips, i decided to pull one up. My happiness at how fab it looked lasted only a few seconds when i spotted some little critters on the top of the parsnips crawling around. So i pulled another one and it had the same problem. I am still trying to find out what they are, but think we may have to pull the whole parsnip crop and store them.

Anyone any idea what it is…if it is carrot fly, the carrots may be at risk too….

I know slugs and snails can be a problem for most gardens…but i have a master plan for that…coming soon. We don’t really have a problem with birds either, being in a town. Cats can be a bit of a pain (as witnessed by my most recent lettuce sowings…which were manured in the only way a cat knows how), i’m working on a solution for that.

But Wombles! Hands up who has them! I find they have a particular liking for my little cauliflower plants. I phoned the RHS, but they declined to comment…i then tried calling a garden centre nearby here, but apparently wombles haven’t been native in the UK since 1975.

What’s confusing me is the little blighter is using my trowel! Any ideas?