This year I am mostly growing our food in the Net Tunnel.
The first seedlings were of course started off in the polytunnel, where it's so much warmer and protected from all the elements and you can give everything an earlier start. But the compost I had wasn't very good and it's basically been a really bad year for most of the things I have sown.
However not one to give up hope I have enriched the beds in the Net Tunnel with homemade compost and have now started to move everything over into the Net Tunnel. The only things that will remain in the polytunnel will be the tomatoes and a small bed of Spinach and Kale.
It's always worth trying to have some spinach and kale in the polytunnel as they can quite easily completely over-Winter in there and bridge the hungry gap until next years plants are big enough to transplant and begin harvesting from ... but of course I'm hoping desperately that, that won't be by me 😁
In the picture from front to nearest to furthest we now have:
3 Potato Plants
1 Courgette
10 Spinach
2 Cucumber Plants
13 Kale
Small empty section.
Strawberries
1 Blueberry Bush
The other side of the Net Tunnel isn't quite as neat and as finished as the left-hand side yet as I still have just over half the centre bed left to weed. But doing a bit each day before the heat drives me back into the house will mean that's it's done by the end of weekend ... nope, I'm not rushing 🤣
In the beds nearest to furthest there are up to now:
4 Potato Plants
A half-weeded bed
1 Blueberry Bush
5 Lavender Plants
In the bath in the centre of the tunnel I have lots of beetroots and a single Courgette plant.
Once I get too hot being outside I come in for my breakfast and yesterday I spent a couple of hours blog-hopping and reading through one of the first Challenges on my other blog.
I got a bit hooked and read the full months worth of posts. Twenty eight days of living on £1 a day, it took me right back as it was the first Challenge I did on my Challenging Myself blog.
It's here if you want a read too, sometimes it's nice to sit at the computer in a cool room and have a read. This link will take you to the first of the posts and then if you click on 'Newer Post' at the bottom of each post you will get them all in chronological order.
What inspired me to read a set of my own challenge posts?
Well I got an email yesterday morning asking me if I wanted to sign up to this years Ration Challenge which is being held in September this year. It's been slightly delayed because of Coronavirus, but it's also equally very important because of it.
I'm having a think about it anyway, of course I'll let you know and most likely blog about it again over on my other blog if I do decide to do it.
Sue xx
I have poly tunnel envy - it all looks great and must smell lovely with five lavender bushes.
ReplyDeletexx
These photos are of the Net Tunnel, it's mesh not polythene. The polytunnel is pretty empty ... and far too hot now even for Lavender.
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ReplyDeleteI think when Admin comes on she will tell you to take a running jump, just like I did when you tried to sneak a comment on my blog.
DeleteI usually Delete them using the 'Remove Forever' button, but I'll just use the Admin one this time so your comment makes sense Ilona. They are a bloody nuisance aren't they!!
DeleteYes, I always remove forever, then the link in the title is gone as well.
DeletePS I don't mind if you remove my comment if you want to dump the whole lot.
DeleteI am growing veg and fruit for the first time ever, in the North of Scotland which is a challenge with the weather at times! I have a home made mini greenhouse and a cheap walk in green house which I bought online. Lots of people have donated seeds and plants and everything is growing well, which amazes me as I don't have any gardening experience. This year will be about learning; learning how much to plant, learning how tall and how much space different plants need and learning about when to plant things. Really enjoying it and enjoying reading other people's blogs about gardening. I have no space in the ground so everything has to be in pots and trays. My biggest dread is plants being munched by slugs and beasties. Any advice from you or readers most welcome please on how to avoid this. Happy growing x
ReplyDeleteAs Pat says, you can stand your pots on grit, or use crushed egg shell, they hate these as they stick to their slime and it's obviously very uncomfortable. You can have a few extra 'sacrificial plants' that you don't mind being nibbled at the edges to see if there are slugs about. If you do spot a few, and they usually venture out at dusk, put your gardening gloves on or grab a trowel and physically remove them, my Dad used to slice them in half with his trowel. YUK!!
DeleteAs a last resort there's no shame in using slug pellets, they are not brilliant but scattered really thinly and just occasionally they will do the job of getting rid of your slimy visitors (if indeed they do arrive) very quickly.
Thank you both; the dogs will scoff the eggshells so I will have to go with the grit idea I think. Wish I could train the dogs to scoff the slugs; they seem to eat everything else including the compost from the pots. Some of the pots are already on stones so they should be ok. A large roll of pea netting has just arrived in the post but the holes will let slugs through. We have huge slugs in the garden at night. I found one on my salad greens on the third shelf of the plastic greenhouse! Are slug pellets pet friendly do you know?
DeleteSlugs was one of the reasons why I stopped growing veg. I was spending hours going round with a torch picking them up at night. Couldn't walk on the back garden without squishing them, or crunching snail shells. Had to resort to pellets in the end. I was worried about my three cats picking them up, but on the plastic container it said not harmful to pets. My cats didn't die and weren't ill. Use sparingly just around the plants you want to protect.
DeleteIf you scatter them thinly and not in clumps they are fine for pets and wildlife. It's when there's a mound of them that there's a chance something will scoff them before they realise how bad they taste. Most tubs do say safe for pets, fish in ponds and wildlife.
DeleteThank you, I will look out for the pellets.
DeleteWell slugs do not like grit so standing your containers on grit would do no harm.
ReplyDeleteYes, and this can actually look quite decorative :-)
DeleteThank you.
DeleteI always loved your Challenge Blogs - you always do amazingly well. I really need to have a think and see if I can come up with something that would give me something to work towards. Think I'll start doing a bit of a re-read of your past ones.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny once I start reading through my own older posts I find myself reading more and more, it's like falling down an online rabbit-hole.
DeleteI'm going to have another read through the Ration Challenge one today, just to see if I really want to do it again. It's a brilliant cause, but I can't see how I could make it any different and there would be no use blogging about it if I just do the same things and eat the same things really would there?
Do a challenge that suits you. Something you like doing but want to become better at it. I sometimes think I might give up the walking challenge, but I know I would miss it, and it keeps me focussed. I'm wracking my brains trying to think of something you could do.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good job I'm not doing a walking Challenge at the moment ... there are only so many loops of our paddock I can do before going mad. Mind you Sir Tom did 100+ laps and he was 100.
DeleteI'll do something once I'm back at the Van. It's harder here when I have to be responsible for Alan's meals as well. I couldn't face cooking us different things three times a day I think it would finish me off for good :-(
I belong to the FB page feed yourself for a £1 a day because there are some ingenious people on there who have put some great, healthy meals together for very little money. That's why I like your challenges.
ReplyDeleteYes I'm on there too, and the Feed Yourself for 50p a Day page. It's nice to be able to help people that are struggling now with things that some of us have learned from our own past experiences. And of course there's always more to learn for all of us.
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