Lucious lettuce and pro-active peas

Bit of a photo update this eve (taken yesterday). First of all, the patch overview. the first spuds should be ready in the not too distant future so this could all look a bit different soon.

My courgettes have been looking a bit dry, with some leaves really patchy white. I took them off and fed them with fertiliser and they seem to have recovered well.



My lettuce which survived the slug assualts have been doing well after the recent rain. Looking quite big and fresh. Not long now. I need to get some more planted in fact!


Some of my Runner Beans have taken a real battering from the slugs, but this one's doing well. Need to tie it to the cane tommorrow.


My peas get veg of the week I think, if only for their little feelers that they wrap round the frame to pull themselves up. They're incredibly strong tenticles that creep up before winding themselves tightly round the first thing they find. I had to help them find the net initially but now they're going great guns. (Click on the picture for a close up!)


And finally, despite their disease and subsequent de-leafing, some of my tomatoes outside are recovering and flowering at last! The ones inside are getting really big and also ready to flower so need to go out this weekend really.

Rain, grow bags and bean frames

On Sunday I swung by the garden centre on the way home from Rosie's, to get grow bags for tomatoes, along with canes to prop them up and make a frame for my runner beans. Before getting to work though, Mum, Dad and I tucked into some more tasty radishes with our lunch. Mmmm....
The first thing I did after lunch was some weeding. There's all kinds of things trying to seed themselves in my patch at the moment, so I got quite a handful of seedlings! Then I sowed another row of carrots and thinned out my lettuces and onions. That means picking some seedlings out so that the others have got space to grow. I replanted the thinnings around the edges of where I'm going to put the purple sprouting broccoli, which is beggining to sprout on the window sill.
I then turned my attention to my tomatoes. I watered the grow bags before transplating the three biggest ones in from their pots and putting in canes to hold them up. I then set up the portable greenhouse that Rosie's parents gave me for my birthday, which should protect them from the high winds this weekend. I had wanted to plant some more tomatoes out, but seeing as I only have one greenhouse I don't want to risk it! Instead I re-potted the others, along with the dying brussels sprouts. The bathroom window sill is now jam packed with plants.


After a busy day gardening, I met up with my some mates from uni for a drink in Victoria - although I turned down the offer of Infected Mushroom afterwards so that I could use my Bank Holiday Monday to do some more vegginess.

As it was, it rained for quite a bit on Monday, with the wind gusting quite hard. Good for the thristy veggies. In one of the sunny spells I managed to make a frame for my runner beans, using 7ft canes crossed over and tied together with one across the top. I then planted a row of beans, the rest of the peas and some courgette seeds in little pots. The patch is really starting to take shape now. Once the broccoli and courgettes are in, and everything's grown a bit, it'll be looking pretty full!

(Photos this week mostly courtesy of Mum)