Friday 10 June 2016

Re-arrangements

I have been shifting pots and containers. This has been prompted by the fact that the cordon tomato plants had got too big to be left in a double row: I just couldn't reach across the outer row to tend to the back row. So now they have been arranged in a single row, right along the wall of the house. There are 12 of them.



In front of the tomatoes are ranged all the little pots of mint and leeks, and various seedlings awaiting further re-location.


The bush tomatoes are in their pots alongside the bed with the carrots in. Seen in the photo below are also some of my chillis - mostly small ones still awaiting potting-on into black 10" pots like the two in the foreground.



There are lots of flowers on the tomatoes, but no fruit have set just yet.






More chillis in 10" pots have been moved out of the plastic greenhouses (for which many are getting too tall), and are arranged alongside the Broad Beans.




Some re-arrangement has also taken place in the raised beds, but of course you could be forgiven for not spotting it (unless you are a very avid reader of my blog!). The middle bed in the foreground here is now covered with a net, supported by some newly-acquired aluminium poles. I had become fed up with animals digging in amongst the salads. Some of my Spring Onions have been re-planted three times!



This means that four of my seven raised beds are now "fully protected". It's depressing that this should be necessary, but I'm afraid it is. Without such protection the beds would be devastated - on a regular basis.
You can see that one of the beds is covered with white mesh. This is the one with the carrots in it. The mesh keeps out the Carrot Root Fly very effectively. I'm currently contemplating the acquisition of more mesh - perhaps some ultra-fine stuff - to protect my Brussels Sprouts from the dreaded Whitefly. It's not urgent, but it could make a big difference to my harvest in the long run.


Here's the view from the other side. Broad Beans on the left; Parsnips in the centre; and Climbing Beans on the right. The aluminium rods in the centre bed are held together by "Build-a-Balls", a very effective way of joining rods to make suitable structures to support nets.




The aluminium rods, connectors, Build-a-Balls, mesh and netting used in my garden have almost all come from a company called Gardening Naturally. I have no hesitation in recommending them. The products are good, the prices are reasonable, and delivery arrangements are excellent. No complaints at all!

4 comments:

  1. What a gorgeous sight - I would be totally taken with that long row of tomatoes. I net my lettuce/spinach bed as well, not only to keep the leaf miners off the spinach, but I also find that it keeps the lettuce a lot cleaner.

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  2. That all looks set up to best advantage. Things tend to be bursting out of their allocated space at this time of year. I still have a supply of metal rods and connectors cannibalised from those cheap plastic greenhouses over the years.

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  3. Your garden, as always, is amazing! You fit SO much into such a small space and still make it look nice.

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  4. The aluminium frames are great but would soon go walkies on the plot so we have to make do with bamboo canes tied together. We use the mesh on brassicas for exactly the same thing. I sometimes think we need to cover everything to protect against some pest or other.

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