Trying to outwit the local wildlife …
Each week, when I think I’ve probably reported enough, something new happens! Having sown some new lettuce plants, which appeared really quickly in that warm spell, I’m greeted with this site…
I’d recently said how safe I thought my lettuce were from pests – suddenly I realise I could have a slug problem. I stuffed all available holes round the cloche with newspaper and thought these upturned pots over the lettuce at night might protect them.
It worked and not only did it protect them, it helped me catch the culprit. Two mornings later, I came to remove the pots and found this little guy in with one of the lettuce! He was a bit camera shy for this, so before we fell out completely, came to an agreement with the slug… or I told him what was going to happen… he was going to move and live out on a big wide beautiful common… well away from here, so he can happily munch something else other than my lettuce! I still have no idea how he got in?
So everything else seems to be growing well… the beans are still flowering…
One or two raspberries are slowly starting to ripen… I’m picking them just before they get too ripe, as not prepared to share with the birds and have no way of putting nets over to protect the fruit.
A lot of growth continues, above and below the ground... I will be digging up a few more carrots and beetroot this weekend and have a regular supply of courgettes to pick.
Even the tomato plants have started to flower – happy days… or so I thought…
Now I have several close friends who are following this and are far more experienced growers than I am. So I’m eternally grateful, after last weeks blog, that two of them (thank you W and A 🙂 ) reminded me that I needed to pinch out some shoots from the tomato plants… WHAT … quick… where was my book or google! So, hoping I’ve understood this properly, you can see the stub of an extra shoot (that I’ve pinched out below the flower buds) that grow at the apex of a leaf branch. I went round all the plants and removed several.
However, this wasn’t the only excitement going on in a week. I come out one morning to find lots of evidence that a mole had been using the main veg bed as his new home… tunnels had been dug everywhere. I was a bit shocked – in all the years I’ve lived here, I’ve never had moles in the garden… and… there was no evidence how he/she got in.
How was I going to catch the little blighter, I can’t bring myself to lay traps, but it had gone everywhere, round the beans, courgettes, beetroot and carrots. The very same evening I came out to more carnage … fresh overground trails straight through the new carrot seedlings in a couple of places and evidence of a tussle…
… and there on the concrete next to the main veg bed… one dead mole. I was rather hoping to somehow catch it and move it to the same place I had taken the slug… out on the common (don’t quite know how this was going to happen). However someone else had stepped in and resolved my problem…
You may recall from week 6, one of my cats helped me inspect the new greenhouse, well she took the matter into her own paws and caught the mole at some point during the day – she simply did what cats do – a hunter through and through.
I would add this following image was not taken on an iPhone.
Carrot seedlings re-planted, tunnels collapsed – I’m hoping it was a one off visitor!
Next week – I’ll try and devote to a photography blog…