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.

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.