The FastDay Forum

One of the good things about having ducks and chickens, they eat the bugs!

Lilly Beetles!!! Grrrr
That's all

but the satisfaction when you pick them off and squash them!

I've spent today planting out and now have a clear home. Over the last month the forget me knots have beautifully crept across the garden and are now on their way out. The acanthus mollis are HUGE and I expect their purple pokers to bloom over the next ten days as the forecast looks good. Poppies are popping up.

Fingers and toes crossed all the veggies and plants survive the night and week without being gobbled up

@carorees

http://www.crocus.co.uk/plants/_/gladio ... 000002115/

Think this was the plant by the entrance at Hampton Court?

Lilly Beetles!!! Grrrr
That's all

but the satisfaction when you pick them off and squash them!

The trouble is once you get one or two the rest take a nose dive! If you are not adverse to using chemicals I have found that spraying with an anti bug spray does offer some protection although the general advice is that the only way to deal with them is to squash them. I usually do them evey couple of weeks or when I spot some of the little red blighters

First pumpkin harvest of the season. 3.5kg Queensland Blue beauty. Counted only about 10 pumpkins in our organic garden this year, but all "accidentals" from the compost heap, so happy with the result. Only watered them twice the whole season and no effort at all. Grew many of the pumpkins up into the air on climbing frames so they didn't invade the lawn like last year and that worked a treat.

queensland-blue.jpg

Been a while since I've been on, so a quick update. I have almost everything I want in the garden, but something attacked my tomatoes, marigolds, and rosemary - just snipped off the leaves until there was nothing left of the tomatoes, but somehow they are coming back! I have a suspicion it may have been nesting birds. Have been eating lettuce and spices out of the garden. SO nice!

Here's a DD (Delightful Dog) story. We generally let our dog out in the back yard. I have done 2 huge planters with a tomato plant and basil and parsley in them near the back patio. They were looking beautiful until yesterday. When I came home, one pot was looking very bedraggled. Apparently DD Marley decided to pull all the plants out of the planter!!! My brother planted them back in, and they looked a bit better this am. Will have to watch that dog! Thankfully, I have a short fence around the main garden!

Bugs, I have cutworms. Everywhere, they are even crawling over my patio. I have never noticed cutworms before but I dig up a couple practically with every scoop of my trowel now.
My newly seeded patch of lawn has taken off spectacularly, its so good that I'm thinking of killing off the old bit just so I can match the grass type. I've also dug out the patch of lawn under the bird feeder as the dropped seeds were starting to mound and go mouldy. The chives are flowering already so I am going to succession sow some seeds to keep a supply in for the year.
I will take some more photo's when it stops raining.

I've planted up three pots this morning but they will stay in the greenhouse until next week, just to give their roots time to settle - plus it's very windy here (always - on the Fens!) and they may get blown out of the pots!

I never did get the delphiniums and foxgloves planted before going away so that's on the agenda for today, too. Busy, busy, busy!

I have a hefty crop of coloured chard at home. This is what it looked like last week:

Just discovered a lovely nursery about 2 roads away from me popped in to see if they had tomato plants as my seeds have not really done well. I've come away with 8 tomato plants, 2 lupins, 1 valerian, 1 rosemary, some creeping thymes for school and some other odds and ends. I could have spent millions in there.

The latest from the garden. The newly seeded lawn has come up nicely and the beds are looking nice and full now. It was taken yesterday evening so its a bit dark. The funny looking boards at the back are my old dining table cut in half lengthways to make worktops for the shed. They are now redundant for that job and will be converted into a shed cupboard this week.

Well, the picture isn't showing as a picture for me. Hopefully it will pop up soon.

@Julieathome looks fabulous and so different from the pictures you put up of the digging and upheaval. It has all settled down and matured really quickly. I envy you your lupins, I keep trying to grow them but they don't like my garden. Just going to try and start digging a goat willow out of my flower bed.

So lovely, Julie--to think it was all mud just a few weeks ago. I saw the pic by right-clicking and choosing
"open link in new window". Maybe that will work for you--I'm using Chrome on my laptop.