Monday, June 17, 2013

17th June!

Yesterday I finally had time spare for the garden so even though there was a light drizzle I did a bit of work.
I planted-up the patio planters - with an odd mixture of flowers and salad leaves. Sweet peas at the back so they can go up the trellis, busy lizzies in front in one planter, and the other one got a few clumps of mixed Italian salad leaves which I had started indoors, and a couple of geranium.
I pulled some more rhubarb, almost a kilo this time. Still problem with slugs eating the talks.
The potatoes are doing well now. For some reason the carrots are barely germinated in the right hand box, not sure if I should cut my losses and sow some more or what.
I transplanted one of the aqualegia plants and put it in a flower bed. If it survives I might move one of the others too because they are too big for the box now. They are flowering and should not be in there.
The broad beans are rather sad looking and the french beans look half dead! One or two have flowers but must of them are dead back to the first pair of leaves. It looks as though they might be regrowing from that point though so I trimmed the stems and I will see how they do this week.
Looks like I may have plenty of empty squares soon :-(
The one nice surprise is the parsnips. The ones which I started indoors are flourishing. I pulled up two plants since they need thinning anyway, and they have lovely little roots! Perhaps I should try doing carrots this way too next year? The "carrot week" ones have germinated quite well this time but starting them off indoors would mean that they would be well away by now.
Bought some timber yesterday so that I can edge round the veg boxes and put down woodchips to make it look neater. Once that is done I will post an update picture to show how things are growing. We really need some sunshine.
Oh, forgot to say that I planted out the runner beans too. They have been outside in a tray for over a week so the garden should not come as a shock but they were started too early indoors, as were all the beans.