Building the raised bed

I thought it was about time to get things moving in the garden again. For the past few days I have been mooching around. Bit of watering there, bit of tidying here.

On Sunday I started building the raised bed kit. This task was quite satisfying. It involved little more than lining up the various pieces of timber and screwing them together.

The next task was to start digging out the area where the raised bed will sit. The reason I have to do this is because the garden slopes down towards the end so I need the bed to be nice and level.

The end of the raised bed closest to the house will need to be sunk a little way into the ground. Digging clay soil is difficult at the best of times, but when it has dried out it makes the going even harder. I'm pleased to say that I struggled on and got the bulk of the work done :-).

On the plant front, the beans are going great. Their splindly little tendrils are just beginning to grab the canes and start their path upwards. The lettuce has germinated somewhat haphazardly but the coriander remains a disappointment with only one plant making an appearance. The nasturtiums have germinated they should provide some colour, as well as being beneficial companion plants.

Last but not least the carrots have started to grow their frilly leaves. This indicates that I should start to thin them out, maybe this week.

Raised bed has arrived

The raised bed kit arrived yesterday. I have been wondering where to put it so devised a cunning plan by drawing a scale plan of the garden using Google Sketchup. It is free you download and once you get the hang of it, very easy to use.

On the plant front, the beans continue to do well. The lone garlic has been assaulted and is looking a little worse for wear. I have been researching on the Internet and will likely purchase some insect mesh to provide total protection for my veggies.

This evening I sowed some borage in my herb trough next to my runner beans. They are a great companion plants for beans because they attract bees. I also sowed some basil, so the herb garden is going well.

I have managed to give away all but one of my chili plants. We now have a little plant swap going on at work. Today I was given six little tomato plants which are now sitting in their own pots.

Trudi's pumpkins now have a nice roomy pot to live in. So this evening I have been busy busy!!

Down the garden path

It was a pleasant day so I set to on a few tasks. Firstly a long-overdue mow of the law and a bit of a strim around the edges. It looks great now. I'm hoping for a bit of rain tomorrow to feshen it up a bit.

I attached some bean netting to some canes and placed them in the raised bed. Those little guys are doing very well. The fourth one is just beginning to show itself.

In my carrot bed my long lost, presumed dead. garlic bulb has miraculously sprouted. I'll leave it a while then transplant it to my herb 'trough'. The carrots are still very wee so I think another week or so before I can start to thin them out.

My last chore of the day was to start marking out a path. The intended route is from the sleeper at the end of the lawn to the garden shed. Before marking out I moved the 'heap'. This resulted in three large frogs and one baby one leaping out. It was good to see them in my garden, and not wanting them to leave I herded them safely into the shady area behind the shed.

Let there be...beans

The foxes/squirrels have been vindicated! All four runner bean seeds I thought had been dug up have germinated.

The beans I potted as an emergency measure are also going great guns. So now I have lots of beans! I've put three in my herb planter and will put the others in my new raised bed. Hopefully they won't be too crowded. I don't know if I am being too paranoid but I've felt the need to give my 'raised bed' beans some protection. To this end I cut the ends off some juice bottles and have buried these into the soil. Try and get in there you nasty slugs!.

Chili

I asked a couple of guys at work whether they would like a chili plant. I had three takers. That still leaves me with four left. The chilis have done really well. I didn't expect all of them to survive, hence the surplus!

I had sown several seeds in one 3 inch pot so I now have taken these out and put them in a pot each. I was a little worried about 'root shock' because they started to wilt a little after transplanting, however they seem to be bouncing back nicely. I'll take the three plants into the office on Monday.

I've re-potted one of the remaining chilis into a nice big red 5 inch pot. I have named this particular plant 'voodo chile'. Heh heh heh. It will be interesting to see how this one grows compared to the others still in their 3 inch pots. I have to think who I can give the remaining chilis to....

The beans have sprouted

I decided to bring in the beans last night. Lo and behold overnight they have sprouted 'triffid-like' from their pots. I will let them get to about 2 inches tall before putting them outside. Let's hope the nematodes have cleaned up the slugs.

Mildew

My honeysuckle has succumbed to mildew. A lot of the leaves have fallen off and there are a third left that have a fine powdery grey coating. I found a recipe to get rid of it here .

You take 5ml of baking powder and mix it with 0.5 litres of water. I sprayed this concoction onto the leaves this evening so fingers-crossed...

More gardening in the the sun

I spent the morning/early afternoon making my second raised bed. I decided to double-dig because the soil in our area is very heavy clay. The frame was a little more complex than the previous one. The slope necessitated three 4 inch planks. The extra height meant I needed to add a half length plank along the bottom of the trench to hide an unsightly gap.

It was hard work and very hot. We missed the mini heatwave in May because we were on holiday so this has definitely been the hottest day of the year so far for me.

I have filled the bed with two layers of compost sandwiched between soil removed during excavations. For the final finish I will mix up some compost and topsoil. The top soil was salvaged when I put decorative bark chippings in the border at the front of the house.

Nematodes

They arrived this afternoon so I immediately set upon the task of applying them. The pack covers forty square metres which is more then enough for my needs. The steps involved are:

• Take a quarter of the nematodes and place them in a watering can


• Add eight litres of water


• Mix


• Apply to a quarter of the area to be treated


• Add eight litres of clean water


• Water the area that has just been 'nematodized'


• Repeat another three times until the whole area is treated

I now need to wait a week for the nematodes to home in on the slugs living in the soil.

Sunny day at last

Still no sign of the carrots or runner beans. Trudi reckons they should make an appearance in a week or so. Fingers-crossed!

After work I spent the evening in the garden. I've potted a tray of lettuce and some beans. I started cutting the timber for the next raised bed. I've had to make this one 8 inches high because of the inherent slope at the back of the garden.

I've lost another marigold to the slugs!!! Instead of eating the leaves they just chomp straight through the stalk :-(. I picked a few more off this evening but fear I'm waging a losing battle(at least until the nematode army arrives).

Slug watch

I dispatched half a dozen slugs last night. I'm not sure what the neighbours thought. If they had looked out of their window they would have seen me peering at my marigolds, with a torch in the pouring rain...

This morning I found a few more of the slimy beasts munching away at the base of the marigolds. It didn't look like there was much damage. I think the foxes are doing a good job of hoovering them up. Still no sign of my slug trap :-(.

Those pesky foxes

I planted my carrots and runner beans last night. Just before it got dark I went out with my torch to go 'slug picking'. I found several of the beasties inching their way to my marigolds. They were soon dispatched with some salt. I've ordered some nematodes in order to get rid of them organically.

The weather has turned thundery again. This morning it was raining heavily. I went out to see it there was any slug damage. No damage by the slimy beasts, thankfully, but the foxes have run off with my home-made 'beer trap'. They also have been digging where I planted my beans yesterday. Maybe they were looking for slugs to eat?

Raised bed

I started work yesterday creating a raised bed for growing veggies. The reason behind the raised bed is my frustration at the heavy clay nature of the soil. You could literally grab and handful and throw a pot with it. I decided to raise the area a little so I could introduce a top layer of compost with a nice rakeable tilth.

I initially dug the area over and added plenty of manure/compost. I bought some exterior 2x4 boards and some battens a while ago which I used for the job. I bought some decking screws to hold everything together.

I only needed three sides because the raised bed was to abutt the garden wall. I measured up and proceeded to cut three lengths of wood. I screwed the first two together and ended up breaking the screw. So with the next one I pre-drilled the hole. I put two screws in each side and then lay the frame next to the wall.

The next step was to ensure that the frame was flat. My garden is on a slope so I had fun and games digging out one side so that the whole structure was sitting level.

Once I was happy with the placement I took the four battens and cut each one into a point. I then hammered these into the ground at each inside corner of the frame. A couple at the back would only go down halfway, due to the concrete under the posts holding the retaining wall up. I sawed the tops of these and then screwed each batten to the frame. In hindsight chunkier square posts would have been stronger but we'll see how long these last.

The final satisfying chore was to dig over the soil and then add a nice top layer of compost.

Tonight I will plant my runner beans :-).