2nd June 2004

 

The Garden strikes back

Do you remember that freshly dug, neat and tidy vegetable garden that was here only a few weeks ago? Well, the sun and the rain have made everything grow like mad, and our vegetables were in great danger of disappearing under a forest of weeds. A day of bringing the garden under control was planned...
 

The beans are off!

Five days ago, we managed to plant some of the beans. Here, a willing volunteer puts the finishing touch to a freshly planted bean plant. You will notice that the beans are a little bit yellow, because they spent a long time in their little pots and didn't have enough food to keep them a healthy green. Now that they are in the ground, their roots will be able to grow out into the soil and find new food.
 
 

 

The carrots and onions, before and after

It seemed like an impossible job at first, looking at the amount of weeds that had grown in the garden (and the size of them!). Some vegetables were feared lost. However, once the weeds had been cleared, loads of onions could be seen. However, the carrot seeds had not grown very well. A whole line of them had been sown, but only about 10 of them had grown, and about half of these were not even growing in the line! A space was needed for the sweetcorn plants, and the big, empty spaces in the carrot line seemed perfect. Why didn't the carrot seeds grow well, who knows? Mr S. found his carrot seeds didn't grow well either.
 

 

 

The beans, before and after

It took a lot of uprooting, digging and pulling out of weeds, but finally space was made for the beans to grow. If we had left this garden any longer, the plants could have taken over, and we may have lost our vegetables, Mini-Garden Hippo and Mr S. forever...
 

 

 

Something's been eating our lettuce...

Imagine the shock and horror of coming into the greenhouse to find that there are less plants than there were yesterday.

This is the sight that greeted us a couple of weeks ago. As you can see in the above left photo, one lettuce has gone (yes, it did have leaves) and another is looking half eaten. We suspected it was a slimy beast, and after searching high and low (we found them on the low, underneath the trays) we found the culprits - two snails, looking very full and contented. They were put on the path, so that they could face up to their crimes. We waited, and waited...
 
...and waited, and waited, and waited. Sometimes a wildlife photographer has to wait for weeks, months even, in one spot to get the picture they want of an animal. I felt like a wildlife photographer at that moment. Finally, both snails decided to come out of their shells and make a run for it. A few minutes later, this snail had moved the length of a 30 cm ruler. Enough was enough. They were both taken away to the bottom of the garden, far away from causing any more damage to our plants.
 

 
 

Watch out for these hollyhocks

They may look small now, but these hollyhocks will get very big very soon. They may even race against the sunflowers to see who will get the biggest. They are some of the flowers we had sown in April in cells, which were now ready to plant out.

    

Where do these stairs lead to?

At the top of the stairs a Rhodedendron is in fantastic full flower. But where do they lead to when you down them...?
 

Nectar today, honey tomorrow

The Poached Egg plants are a magnet for bees, and over four different types have been seen visiting them. This bee looks as though it is collecting nectar for its food and to turn into honey. You could be eating this soon. The bee looked very delicate as it buzzed from one flower to the next.

 

This bee does bumble

When the bumble bee came to visit, it was like watching an elephant dancing. As it landed on a Poached Egg flower, the flower dropped downwards and the bee had to buzz its little wings frantically to stop itself from falling off. Did you know that scientists are still trying to work out how the bumble bee's tiny wings are able to carry its huge body about? The bees visiting these flowers will pollinate them, making sure that there will be seeds to grow into next year's plants.
 
 
 
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