Vegmonkey and the Mrs.

I sort of decided too late that veg for Christmas dinner would be a good idea, so we only had a few ickle baby carrots as shown below. Still, quite rewarding considering it is almost January. 12 degrees where we are today, who’d a’ thought it (almost warm enough to start planting)! We also ate carrots that had been blanched then frozen from September, and parsnips and leeks that had been harvested and stored in sand for the last couple of months.

This was our first Christmas in the new house, and also our first married Christmas, so it was extra special. We had both sets of parents visiting for Christmas day, and a lot of Christmas food. Needless to say we have rather a lot still left over…looks like turkey for dinner ’til 2009!

It’s also 8 months since we started doing what we are doing! The garden is alive and well, a few things anyway. I’ve left the rest of the carrots that were planted for Christmas lunch in the soil, with a cover over so that come Feb we will hopefully have some lovely big carrots…i hope…it’s worth an experiment anyhow, never overwintered then before!

Finally, the garden had a new present of it’s own today, 2 brand new 6V batteries in the cat scarer….it’s now ‘purring’ perfectly.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all who visit us here.

Vegmonkey and the Mrs.

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!