Saturday, 18 July 2009

Run it up the Beanpole and see who salutes it.



My two little projects are coming on well. The front garden project is mainly flourishing, as you can see the Borlotti beans have finally got the bit between their teeth and raced up the beanpole. In fact 2 delicate shoots are wobbling precariously several inches above the beanframe, clinging to each other like acrophobic maidens. The Butternut squash is thundering along too in a heavy weight kind of way, however, the petit pois seem have given up the ghost and fainted clean away.

The Grand Radish Project goes from strength to strength, not only are the plants loving it, I am too. Thinning out, watering and generally keeping an eye on what's going on with them is so much easier at a higher level.

My Aunty Carol is a fan of Starbucks and has been collecting their 'grounds for your garden' for me. These are the used coffee grounds which they bag up and give away for free. I've done a little research and, apparently, coffee grounds are best used as a 'side dressing' (for the plants, not your salad) which means they are heaped on the ground about 2" away from the plants. So that's what I've spent this afternoon doing, carefully piling the coffee grounds around the base of any veggies with a reasonable amount of space around them. I'll report back on how effective it is.

I've also got my eye on the local Rowan berries as I'm going to try my hand at Rowan jelly for the first time this year. The berries look ripe although it's a bit early, in fact Richard Mabey's book recommends harvesting in October! I would prefer to wait a little longer til the apples are ripe as I need those for the jelly too, although I wonder how many berries will be left in a month's time given how greedy my arch nemesis, those pesky local sparrows, are.

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