Maintenance jobs

Boring but essential, I spent quite some time this afternoon weeding my onions - they were looking a bit neglected. I was joined by the female blackbird who is nesting in our front hedge. She seemed quite happy, just inches away from me while I worked. After removing all the weeds, I watered and mulched them with homemade compost, so now they look much better.

I planted these as sets last Autumn as that gave me a fantastic harvest last year. However, this year they don't seem to be doing quite so well and I'm not quite sure why. I think some may have been dug up by cats and some may have rotted as the winter was so wet. When I planted them I had quite a few left over. I couldn't quite bring myself to throw them away, so I very generously free-cycled them. On reflection, I should have planted them in pots to grow on and fill the holes. Maybe next year...

The other job was earthing up the potatoes. I used more of my homemade compost, combined with some of the top soil which I'm still using up.

Busy weekend of (over-due!) sunshine

Wow! What a lovely week-end we've had! It's been such a long time since the sun shone for more than a few minutes...

I decided to take the fleece covers off the raised beds yesterday, hoping that the veg wouldn't get eaten. I was initially a bit dismayed to see a load of birds arrive. On closer inspection, they were house sparrows and goldfinches and seemed to be eating between the greenery, so I left them to it. When I went out later, I couldn't see any obvious damage, so I think they may have been eating the ants. House sparrows are supposed to be in decline (have a read here), but they seem to be thriving around here, and we even have a nest in the eaves!

Jobs I've done this weekend include:

• thinned out the red onions
• earthed up the potatoes again
• weeded
• potted on the sweetcorn and courgettes
• planted out the brussel sprouts
• lawn mowing
• clearing a very overgrown flower bed

Well I did say it was a busy weekend!

Potatoes

Despite the distinct lack of sunshine recently, the potatoes are growing really well - they must like the rain!


This is what my Kestrel potatoes were looking like last weekend (5th May), before I did some "earthing up"...

And after the earthing up (on the 6th May)...

They have been growing well all week and are now even further above the soil than last week! 

And the ones growing in bags are doing pretty well too. In the bags, I've put a bottle with the bottom cut off so that I can water to the base more easily, although with all the rain we've had recently I haven't used the watering can in weeks!

5th May

6th May

11th May