Night of the May Bugs

Every year there are a few major ascension dates in the garden calendar. The first of these took place last night with the May Bugs. These beetle or cockroach like insects with Norman Lamont eyebrow style feelers spend most of the year underground as grubs. I often find them while I'm digging. Then for one night of the year they all crawl out to buzz around, frantically bumping into things and mating. Our house has been under assault. Every time you open a window or turn on a light they buzz in like fat carapaced daddy long legs (You can see one on my sleeve - he got stuck behind my hi-fi). They can be quite intimidating...


Yesterday I dug over the new patch in my back garden, which has been moved to where we had a giant overgrown conifer down. (You can see the old patch in the background - the yellow flowers are a sprout gone to seed). It meant digging and tugging out old roots whilst dripping with sweat and covered in dust. Then this morning I bought some landscape fabric and planted the strawberries out into slits and also in a pot.



On the allotment I built a frame for my mange tout peas, and a makeshift wire cover for my broccoli which both seem to have been pecked at by hungry birds. After some heavy weeding I also planted out the first of the wilted toms.

Wet wet wet

What a wet weekend it's been. Started off by picking some of the first rocket for salad on Friday night (as modelled by Rosie). Did most of the work on Sunday. It didn't stop raining all day so I got quite wet and muddy. The first job was to secure my tomatoes. For each growbag, I tied a small stick across the three bamboo poles and then used 4 bricks to weigh it down. They've survived the winds so far so they seem quite sturdy.

Next up I took advantage of the soft soil to push in two stakes and attach the plastic netting for my peas to climb up. I also used small sticks to prop them up in the meantime and keep them away from slugs.

Before lunch we nipped down the garden centre where I got some natural sand slug barrier. I put this round my courgettes after I planted them out in pockets of compost. I also used some round my lettuces and peas. It seems to be working so far - although I did catch one fat slug munching on a leaf that had fallen over it in the rain. I've stepped up the patrols recently and after finding quite a few of the pests on Saturday, numbers seem to be down a bit.

Meanwhile my first runner beans have emerged and my potatoes are beggining to flower. I earthed up around them a bit more.

Finally, if anyone remembers the grub I found in my first post (here) - I found the end product while digging around the spuds. Its a bit worrying though because apparently they eat through things and I thought I'd got rid of them all as I dug the patch over.