Fish Nets, Tights and Stockings in the Garden
Posted on Fri, May 29, 2009
This week has really been a massive week. We've done a lot of hours and covered quite some ground in that time. I've also been busy most evenings writing a business plan, reviewing what needs to be done and how to do it over the next years. As the summer drives on it becomes apparent that things can only move slowly in a garden, ambitious projects and developments take time and careful planning.
The herb beds are coming along and there is a plan to grow squash in them this year to 'test the soil' and see what weeds we're up against before planting any perennials. All the herbs we are going to use have been planted into the garden to develop and over the autumn and winter we will dig them up and transplant them if the ground is ready for it; that's the 'plan' any how.
I've also been very busy spraying the gooseberries with all sorts of biodynamic concoctions to try and remove the sawflies. It's proving to be quite a time consuming crop, I had the sense today that we are getting there. Today I'm spraying three lots of 24 hour nettle tea as a way to control the population of the caterpillars, this is why I mention the stockings. We need to use a pair to strain the tea before we spray to remove all the plant debris. The fruit is looking well and swelling up after a quite some rain this week, but now the sun is blazing and the fruits are ripening. We managed to get a Horn Silica spray in on Wednesday morning to aid with the ripening process.
Now that the fruits are ripening, the birds are getting hungry and I'm getting worried. For some reason the pigeons took a real liking to the white currants, they are far from ripe but they were trying to eat them anyway. So the nets have gone up, quite a task with two guys and it took us a day to do it finishing at 10 pm last night and then spending a few more hours this afternoon finishing off the joining and weighing the sides down.
The whole place is looking very different now and we have all sorts of lovely things popping up everywhere, the scorzona has germinated and there are hundreds of cavlo nero plants and Purple sprouting broccoli literally jumping out of there trays, and the lettuce is exquisite.
After this busy week I know that next week will be the same, thank god for Colyn. He's being a great help during this busy period.
Happy gardening everyone!
Rob