August 2011

The vegetable plot is in full swing at the moment. All the hard work earlier in the year is now paying off an I am picking lots of fruit and vegetables including, French beans, courgettes, tomatoes, raspberries and peas.

This is the first year I have picked my own cherries had lots of fruit on this season. Because it is a miniature and therefore not very tall, I was able to cover it with the Planto Tomato Fleece (which has so many uses!) The birds have been unable to get at the cherries and they have ripened in the fleece.

The runner beans seem slow to set this year. As in other years, I have sprayed the flowers with sugar water to encourage the bees, so hopefully I will be picking very soon. Because it have been dry this last couple of weeks I have given them a few good watering's to help the beans swell.

Every so often I like to walk round the garden with secateurs, a rubbish bag and a pencil and paper. I tidy up with the secateurs- an odd branch here and a dead branch there, but if something need more attention I note in down on the paper and return to the job when I have more time. It is a good way of keeping everything neat and tidy but not overlooking the bigger jobs.

Following on from last month when I wrote about the seemingly dead bushes and plants re sprouting, this month the Eucalyptus tree, which seemed to have dies during the severe winter, has started sprouting from ground level around the trunk. The tree will still need to be chopped down as there is no growth on it but it is nice to know that there is still life in the roots. I will probably prune the new growth hard back each year and keep it as a shrub, rather than letting it grow into a tree again.

I am still planting salad leaves at regular intervals in the greenhouse (although they will do equally well on a windowsill). They are a very quick crop to mature (only taking about two weeks) and are delicious when served straight from the greenhouse to the plate.

Happy Gardening!