Kella the Builder

Another glorious sunny and warm day, yah!!!

I finished erecting the rest of my wigwams for the legume bed, it might be a little cramped but since I added lots of kitchen waste to the soil in the form of trenches I'm not worried about the plants running out of nutrition and the shredded paper in the trenches should aid with water retention. The only thing is air circulation, if it turns out to be a wet summer the plants may suffer with mold if everything stays to damp but if the summer is a dry one they should be OK, here's praying for a great summer as predicted by the MET.

The next structure I built today was one of two planned frames for netting my brassicus plants against the cabbage white butterflies lying eggs on my plants. I just have to drape the netting over it.

The last structure I began construction on was my outside covered tomato bed (see my posting in A4A on its use in 2008, if you scroll down I describe further on how I constructed it). This time I dug individual pits and half filled them with a mixture rotted small mammal bedding, droppings and lawn clippings from last year, I then sunk my bamboo posts into the ground to a depth o 12". I was able to do eight of the twelve poles, the last four will be done when I have cleared the rest of the bed of last years perpetual spinach and this years early radishes.

Other jobs that got done was the potting up of a couple more of my cabbage seedlings into coir pots. On the surface of the soil I under sowed the seedlings with a few thyme seeds each, which should germinate and according to some thoughts out there it should help to prevent cabbage root fly (I assume the strong smell of the thyme should confuse the fly). At best it would look pretty when in flower and attract beneficial insects like bees to help pollinate other crops and maybe hover flies who would leave their young behind to hoover up pests off the brassicus plants.

The rest of the summer savory plants were planted out in the legume bed now that the poles are in place.

On the germination front, the parsley, runner beans, french climbing beans and the borlotti beans have begun to germinate.

Went into the greenhouse this morning and was greeted by an open flower of a ....??? (can't remember the name will check again tomorrow and edit it in) squash and not a mature male flower in sight:(, so I have removed the flower and the immature fruit to prevent the plant from wasting energy. I think I will have to plant out my squash and pumpkins earlier than the third week of May like I previously planned. Will most likely start to prepare their planting holes tomorrow with the aim to plant out by next weekend. Will probably fleece and cloche the plants for a short period to help acclimatise them further.

The poor collard doves were worried endlessly as the girls joined me in the garden today for quite long periods. My eldest also found another broken egg in the grass, it must have fallen during the night as I only saw one when investigated this morning after she left the nest when I entered the garden. Hopefully it will still be in the nest tomorrow morning.

This lovely iris was blooming, it is one of a few plants that have survived the garden's makeover. Now that all the heavy digging and weeding is practically over some of missed tubers since last summer have begun to reemerge but this year is the first year any have flowered. I'm quite pleased as I thought they were long gone.

Also I saw this very pretty moth first by the flower beds then was later able to get a photo of it by the herb bed, it was very flighty so the picture doesn't do it justice. I just identified it as a Pyrausta purpuralis.