Creepy crawly horrors invading my garden! Uck uck uck!
A massive sawfly larvae infestation all over my green and happy gooseberry bush. At first we thought they were quite sweet, until we saw how they stripped the leaves clean down to their veins, and just kept on eating. According to the Encyclopedia of Gardening, you have to pick them off by hand and for "severe" infestations it's insecticide, baby!
Yeah. It looks like we might be at that level.
Luckily pyrethrin is an organic insecticide, and is supposed to be safe for us, and for most of our other garden residents. I still hate the idea of using it, but it beats picking handfuls of little green wriggly things off my poor mutilated gooseberry bush every 4 to 6 hours. I say again UCK!
No pictures, but just imagine a tiny green caterpillar with a black head eating its bodyweight and expanding at the speed of light. To the garden centre I go!
Showing posts with label growth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label growth. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
So much growing, so much that I have probably planted a little early.
Very little is as exciting as sweetcorn seeds coming up. Little green spears springing up. I feel like Medea sewing the dragon's teeth. Luckily I don't think my spears will turn into warriors. Hopefully we'll get really delicious sweetcorn.
Everything I have going in the seed trays has come up apart from the fennel (very ancient seeds), and the Salvia lavandifolia. The trays are really beautiful and desperately need thinning.
My friend's garden has got a reasonable number of herbs already planted: two types of thyme, a purple sage, mint and a huge rosemary bush. They are sort of scattered around a patio that is going to go, so I think I'll be moving the plants, and planting my seedlings all in one section. She would prefer to have everything together in one place, so we can definitely do that.
My first lot of gardening for her was to trim the giant rosemary bush (which I am NOT moving), and put the clippings into the compost heap. Excitingly, despite her nerves about worms she has said she'll feed the compost, which is a great bravery, so there will be loads of rich lovely compost for her husband's planned veg bed.
We also planted some dwarf sweetpeas in a pot for her conservatory craft room. My small was ecstatically happy all day in the garden, which makes all of us equally gleeful.
Very little is as exciting as sweetcorn seeds coming up. Little green spears springing up. I feel like Medea sewing the dragon's teeth. Luckily I don't think my spears will turn into warriors. Hopefully we'll get really delicious sweetcorn.
Everything I have going in the seed trays has come up apart from the fennel (very ancient seeds), and the Salvia lavandifolia. The trays are really beautiful and desperately need thinning.
My friend's garden has got a reasonable number of herbs already planted: two types of thyme, a purple sage, mint and a huge rosemary bush. They are sort of scattered around a patio that is going to go, so I think I'll be moving the plants, and planting my seedlings all in one section. She would prefer to have everything together in one place, so we can definitely do that.
My first lot of gardening for her was to trim the giant rosemary bush (which I am NOT moving), and put the clippings into the compost heap. Excitingly, despite her nerves about worms she has said she'll feed the compost, which is a great bravery, so there will be loads of rich lovely compost for her husband's planned veg bed.
We also planted some dwarf sweetpeas in a pot for her conservatory craft room. My small was ecstatically happy all day in the garden, which makes all of us equally gleeful.
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