Dicolouration and Pigeons

There seems to be lots going on in the garden at present. We have been thinning out our lettuce and transplanting them and then feeding some of the ones that are maturing as they are showing signs of deficiency, going too yellow. We haven given them a good feed of chicken pellets as this provide nutrition over a longer period and is organic. We have also given the runner beans a good feed as these too are not a great colour and a growing very slowly at present.
The first crops of turnips are now being harvested and we are already half way through the crop. Our follow on crop is suffering, the retched pigeons are getting there before we are. We are going to net this crop as well. It does seem that our number one pest at present are pigeons









This week we have also started sowing more cut flowers a row of Amaranthus and a row of Sweet William 'Sooty' have been planted which should give us great cut flowers in late summer.
More vegetables have been sown, Pak choy and giant mustard which should give us a great late season crop.
We have also encountered a new problem with runner beans, runner bean rust, this causes blister like holes in the leaves with what can only be described a a coral like growth on the under where the holes are, The RHS advice on treatment is to leave alone and the plant will recover there is no treatment at present and is unlikely to effect yield or the growth of the plant.

Pumpkin update

This week the pumpkin does not to appear to have moved on much, but it is still alive and growing all be it very slowly. We have not had very warm days or nights this last week so we have not had the growth that we would normally had expected for late June.

Getting tidy for grand opening

Friday morning 20th June and we were rushing around to get the site clean and tidy ready for the grand opening that afternoon. The weather forecast was grim, looking like heavy rain.
Chris Pack and Steve Trotter are the guest speakers. We have also been given an Hampshire heritage apple tree 'Beauty of Hants' to plant from Sparsholt College.
In the end it turned out fine and dry and about 100 guests turned up.
Many children who first came to garden back in April also came along and a good time was had by all.




We thought as something different we would get Chris to pull a beetroot instead of cutting a ribbon, we felt this was too ordinary.
We are now official, so lets get more people into the garden and teach them how to grow their own fruit and veg.
Thanks to everybody who helped on the day, it was a great success.

How big is your Pumpkin ?

After a weeks growing we feel our pumpkins are getting established. We lavished plenty of water onto them over the last week even though there has been a threat of rain, unfortunately the rain we received did not really get well into the soil so Julian has been giving these a good soaking each day. How are yours getting on?

Julians environmental commute

Julian ( our head gardener) lives in Bournemouth but commutes to the garden via train and bicycle, very environmentally friendly. He always makes sure his attire is well seen while cycling, note the shoes !

Turnip delight

Having only planted our turnips 8 weeks ago in our raised beds we are delighted to now be harvesting delightful baby turnips. This really shows the benefits and advantages a raised bed can bring.

Recycle old pallets

Today we have started to build our compost bins from re-cycled pallets, our method of build does not involve digging or fixing posts into the ground, not ground breaking just a lazy mans way of construction. It won't be long before we have filled these bins up as we will be putting all our green waste from the Garden centre, coffee shop and garden. The work now begins on making great compost, plenty of aeration and turning of the materials.

Giant Pumpkins

It would appear our Giant Pumpkin competition is really getting going, we have sold quite a few over the weekend in the Garden Centre.
Having only just planted ours out in the Learning Garden last week we are making sure they do not get any checks at the moment so we are applying plenty of water so they do not dry out while they are making their roots.

Eel worm attack

It looks like we have discovered the first signs of eel-worm in our Chinese radish today.
Planting out Borlotto beans that have been raised in our nursery poly-tunnels.
More courgettes and sweet corn being planted today again all raised under-cover to be in the perfect condition for planting.

Pumkins are go

We are planting out all our pumpkins and gourds today (11th June 2008) including one of our special Giant Pumpkins. Remember we have posted a fact sheet on how to grow pumpkins on our site at Fact sheets here we are giving away some of the trade secrets on how to achieve a whopper.