Vegetable plants are back in

We currently have more winter cabbage and cauliflower plants back in stock at the garden centre. These have all been grown on our nursery and are the same varieties we are currently planting in our learning garden.

Fairweathers Pumpkin update

We cannot be out done by Mr Packham. Look at our baby!

Update from Chris Packham

'The behemoth liveth ! Look at my triffid ! I know its just the start , just a few leaves , but it seems to be prospering under my loving care . Whatever , my confidence is currently high . I wonder how long it will be before its visable from space ? '




'Here it is - the first picture of my baby monster . I now know how a proud parent feels with one of those scans ! I fertilized it two days ago using pollen from the male flower and I reckon its begining to swell already . And if one of the badgers that visit my garden even looks at it . . .

Bird feeders and cabbage whites

When Chris Packham came on our wildlife day he put 3 bird feeders up into an Oak tree on the site.
It has taken 2 weeks for the birds to get used to these feeder but now they have found them they are emptying them out in a couple of days. The most important thing is to keep them filled up as now they have found them we want to keep them interested in the site as they can be great predators and with the amount of cabbage white butterflies about we will need their help and assistance in controlling the caterpillars that are about to invade us.

Weeds galore

With the rain that we have had followed by a good period of warm weather we have had a greening of the site with weeds. As we are trying to be organic in our production it was a case of sharpening up the hoes and getting out there when the sun was really shining. There is no way about it hoeing is not only very satisfying to do but also very effective. In a matter of just one day a big improvement has been made.

Oh no our baby has gone

Bad news. The pumpkin that had set last week has been chomped by slugs. The little devils sneaked in under the cover of darkness and chewed off our first set pumpkin.
Good news however the second pumpkin has set a little baby now, but the task is to keep the predators away from this one. Unfortunately it is still so very cold these plants are not growing as fast as they should be. This July is not a great squash month.

Our first baby

Great news our pumpkin has set fruit and we have our first baby pumpkin on the plant.

There is bad news however the stem has split !!!!!
I do not think this is too much of a problem however as it is already showing signs of callous forming to heal itself, this could have been due to irregular waterings. Having spoken to Chris Packham at the weekend his too has split, but still no fruit on his.

Conifer Aphids

We have had a customer in today with a conifer hedge where great sections of it had died and on touching it the leaves have dropped off. There are other areas where the growth is perfectly ok.
The problem is due to Conifer aphids and the one that manly cause the problem is Cinara species. Fortunately there is help at hand and a couple of good doses of Scotts 'Bug Clear' will get rid of the pest, but you must spray at first signs otherwise it can be difficult to control.

Big bug attacks Garden centre

We had a infestation of a big bug today at the garden centre, it seems even the bugs have heard about our Gardening with wildlife day on Saturday

Fairweathers Pumpkin

At long last it looks like our pumpkin is starting to grow, it is now sending out a leader but it is looking a bit sick, this could be due to the still rather cold nights we are getting.

Chris Packhams Giant Pumpkin

I received this e-mail from Chris today who is really getting excited about our pumpkin challenge and he has every right to be excited it is a real whopper:
Chris Packham says:

" I was worried to start with as there seemed little progress from my seedling . . . but now its off to a flying start . Ive been pretty fastidious with the watering and giving it a little root food to get it started . I feed my Badgers about 2 metres away from where its planted and Im begining to wonder if this was such a good idea given their very cosmopolitan diet ! We shall see . Theres still a long way to go but my confidence is growing as fast as my potential giant ! "

Chris

How is yours growing? let us know by adding to this post.