Ladybirds, blackfly and bees.....and bean poles.

Insect life was particularly noticeable this week in the garden.  Ladybirds feasted on blackfly, so helping our plants to survive.

Ladybird and blackfly on borage

More ladybirds on swiss chard

 Bees were everywhere, enjoying the echiums, borage and phacelia, and pollinating our veg as well.

Spot the bees on phacelia

Some of the phacelia has finished flowering, and is being removed to make room for sweetcorn.

Making a space for sweetcorn.

We have experienced some irritating vandalism since last week's efforts with the bean poles - one of the wigwams was pulled up and left lying near the plot. So we hope we have fixed them in even more firmly this time around.

We've been here before!

Bring on the watering cans!

At last it's time to plant out the tomatoes and courgettes.
However, some of the ground is so hard and dry that it needs watering before any planting holes can be dug!

Tomatoes need a lot of water after planting too.

We bought new hazel rods this year to make the bean wigwams.

Wigwam under construction

Here's one we made earlier

In our fruit area, the thornless loganberry is doing quite well. We have fixed some wires onto the wall behind it so that we can fasten it back tidily.

The loganberry needs support

We have a fine show of californian poppies at the moment. They don't mind the dry conditions at all.

Californian poppies with phacelia behind to set them off

Donations gratefully received!

While we were working in the Garden this week, Daniela & Ella, Cheltenham residents originally from Romania, very kindly gave us some seedlings for the Garden:

Daniela & Ella with capsicums, squashes & tomatoes for planting in the garden

We are always happy to receive plants for the garden, we like to keep the planting as diverse as possible.

The garden is looking very pretty at the moment, with many plants in flower ~ amongst the most spectacular are the rhubarb plants:

Rhubarb flowers in the foreground, with yellow mustard flowers behind & the silver leaves of a globe artichoke at the rear of the planting

Rhubarb doesn't really thrive here in the garden, as it's a plant that likes cool conditions & plenty of water (cultivated rhubarb is derived from species originating in Siberia) ~ the Annecy Gardens being iu the middle of town & surrounded by buildings are warm & dry & the rhubarb tends only to make skinny stalks. But the flowers are still beautiful.

We have planted some lettuces:

Red salad bowl lettuces

Lettuces are quite hardy & are unaffected by the cold nights we have experienced recently ~ we are waiting for the warmer weather before we plant out seedlings of tender crops such as runner beans, climbing french beans, squashes, courgettes, tomatoes & sweetcorn.

Last year some of the most striking plants in the garden were the Echiums by the main gates ~ these plants are monocarpic, meaning that they died once they had flowered. But there are plenty of seedlings now appearing in the beds. Slightly less showy than the Echium pininana x wildprettii we had last year is this:

Echium x scilloniense ~ I collected seeds of this plant in September 2013 from plants growing on waste ground on the island of Tresco; this is the only survivor, most of the other seedlings we planted of this died during the winter

We will be having a plant sale on this coming Saturday morning (23rd May 2015), between 10am & 1pm ~ please do come & say hello if you can ~ there'll be a range of vegetable plants available, as well as a wide variety of wildlife-friendly flowers for your garden.

Things grow fast at this time of year!

We didn't get a chance to harvest many rhubarb stalks before the plants rushed into flower very early - perhaps because of the warm dry weather in April. Never mind, the flowers are worth having too.

Rhubarb flowers are rather splendid

 

 

Late last summer we sowed miner's lettuce seed. It has certainly made itself at home! This little plant has many names - winter purslane, claytonia, spring beauty and the Latin montia perfoliata. It is a mild tasting cool weather salad plant, rich in vitamin C.

Miner's lettuce overwinters here with no difficulty

Houda and her Mum and baby sister joined us in the garden this week. With no garden of their own, they love spending time here.

Houda enjoyed helping us

Starting another year at the Annecy Garden

Just three years ago we met for our first session in the Annecy Garden. The beds had been prepared for us by the Council and were completely empty apart from some stepping stone pavers.
Today it's a very different picture...

Plenty growing here!

The two middle beds of perennial vegetables and herbs are almost full and need little attention. The other four beds also seem quite full. The self-seeded salads - rocket, lamb's lettuce and land cress -  have been very productive all winter, and are now flowering and preparing to produce yet more seed. 

Rocket in full flower, globe artichoke behind.

People often tell us how much they enjoy coming to the garden. At this time of year the abundant flowers of the wisteria on the pergolas beside the vegetable plots are an added bonus.

wisteria is always spectacular.

Snail trouble

For the previous two seasons we've been lucky enough not to suffer too much from slugs & snails. I think this is partly because the beds we've been cultivating have been cut into closely mown grass & have been rather bare & rather inhospitable to molluscs. But now there's year round cover on the plots & so the little horrors have places to hide, from which they emerge to devour our seedlings.

Here's a courgette we've just planted to replace one that the slugs ate earlier:

One of the multicrop sowings has been doing well, here the different varieties are mainly brassicas, but there's some chard in there too:

Multicrop in foreground, blue phacelia flowers to right, broad beans under hazel wigwam to rear

The other multicrop sowing has been hit hard by slugs & snails. As you can see in the photo above, we've put our bean wigwams in place ~ the hazel rods have lasted quite well from last year.

We've planted french beans on the wigwams, hopefully these will establish quickly before our slimy friends can guzzle them:

Here's a picture of one of our perennial beds, the globe artichoke to the rear is looking particularly magnificent:

Globe artichoke to rear, lettuces (red & green) in foreground with rhubarb to right; rocket flowers in midground

Flowering brassicas & much, much more

The fields of oilseed rape around Gloucestershire are echoed with some of the flowers in the Annecy Gardens. Plants of the red curly kale, 'Redbor' are flowering now & the pale yellow flowers are very pretty:

Red curly kale 'Redbor'; you can also see potatoes emerging here & lettuce

Looking particularly striking at the moment is the variegated kale, 'Creme Chantilly', where the cream flowers tone in with the pale yellow leaf margins:

Brassica 'Creme Chantilly' in flower

The seakale, Crambe maritima, also has attractive leaves (no flowers on our plants) that look much like kale; although I believe exceedingly tough if eaten at this stage, it is generally recommended to eat the blanched young shoots in early spring. We've given it a little sign as last year it was being picked at this stage ~ which will only weaken the plant & provide the picker with something horrible to eat.

Crambe maritima

This year we're having a go at polyculture, sowing seeds of a number of different vegetables as a mixture; it is suggested that doing this might provide heavier crops through more intensive use of the ground; also help reduce pest damage ~ for instance, growing a mixture containing both onions & carrots may reduce carrot fly damage as the onions will mean the carrot flies cannot smell the carrots to lay their eggs on them. Well, that's the theory.

Seedlings germinating in the polyculture

The echiums are now in flower. Both blue Echium gentianoides & red Echium pininana x wildprettii, the bees in particular love this latter, when we were at the garden there were masses of bumble bees of a number of species visiting the plants; also honeybee visitors too.

Echium pininana x wildprettii closeup

Echium pininana x wildprettii, the whole flower spike; all the flowers open at once making it very striking; & a bee magnet

Echium gentianoides, detail

Echium gentianoides