New Potatoes and the Snail Hotel

Spent all day on Sunday gardening today from about 10 till 8. Started off by chopping down this shrub under th kitchen window, which had become rotten with mould from a nearby rose bush. It turned out to be a chock full of snails. I've never seen so many in one place before! With veggies in mind I should probably have killed them all but I like snails and it's the other end of the garden.



There was another guest in the snail hotel as well!


Next job was to plant out another growbag of tomatoes with their respective scaffolding. Then I sowed rows of carrots, rocket, lettuce and spring onions.

Mum, Dad and Merlin were all out in the Garden for the day as well. Merlin, the terror, killed a baby Robin yesterday morning. One of it's parents kept us company for the day as well, sitting on tools and tugging up worms from where I was working. I couldn't help but feel sorry for him knowing that our little menace had slaughtered its offspring for the year, despite his cheerful song.



After lunch we made a family trip to the garden centre to get some new pots, grow bags and spray for the whitefly. I experimented on just the biggest sprout first as I'm not sure whether it's good for the seedlings or not. I also used some on our Japonica which is infested with blackfly.

It says in my book that new potatoes are ready to harvest once they have flowered and the tubers are the size of a hen's egg. I had an exploratory poke around a plant that flowered a few weeks ago and found a few which matched this discription, so Mum and I decided to pull it up. I was a bit dissapointed by the low yield (bottom picture) but was glad to find them all in good condition, bar one with superficial common scab.



I also picked a couple of radishes and was thining out my carrots when I found my first root - a micro carrot! Was a very tasty nibble. I think I'll leave thinning out till a bit later next time.


There's a lot of mini mushrooms growing around my courgettes (below). I need to get down the Leg'O'Mutton field early one morning to look for some edible ones.


The day's harvest (below) - not much but it's early days yet! As the day ended I sat on the bench by my patch, re-potted some broccoli and sowed some coriander, parsley and basil in seed trays. As I sat there, a song thrush perched on the conifer opposite and sand his heart out for about 15 mins. They've got such a random tune but very pleasing on the ear. It was a really peaceful end to a busy day!