Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Courgettes

I'm not having much luck with my courgettes. The first lot completely failed to germinate (I suspect it was too cold). The second batch germinated brilliantly and were looking really healthy until I potted them on, when they just seemed to shrivel up. Left with just 2 plants, I have planted up a new container (on special offer at the local plant nursery - so how could I refuse?).




The up-turned bottles were Sara's Mum's idea, having seen it done where they live in Greece. Since she mentioned this a few weeks ago I've seen it repeated in many places as a drought busting idea to encourage strong, deep roots. I've also reused the cut-off bottoms to act as propagators for six more seeds - I'm determined to harvest a few courgettes!!

Blackberries

I've always managed to get plenty of blackberries from the local hedges, but I was given a thorn-less blackberry plant by a neighbour a few weeks ago (see here) which apparently gives much bigger and sweeter fruit. This prompted me to clear another overgrown corner of the back garden to make space for it. I forgot to take a "before" shot, but here's the "after", complete with free poppy that had self-seeded in the same pot!