Well this is the wettest drought I ever did see! Rain, Rain,Rain! On the plus side all the plants are looking so healthy & green, they all badly needed a drink, and a lot of the shrubs were looking very yellow. I have managed to get out there this week, even did some mowing which was good, as the lawns were a bit long. Whilst it has been raining I have been tending to my seedlings in the greenhouse and ‘pricking them out’, mainly little Lavender seedlings (munsted), Cosmos & Zinnia. The runner beans are romping away, but they won’t be allowed out yet, not until any risk of frost has passed.
Other jobs that can be done whilst we are all waiting to get out into the garden are turfing out your old containers, get rid of the old compost (in the compost heap, or on the garden), and clean them out. If you find any white little grubs with brown heads, that will be the horrid old ‘vine weevil’. You must get rid of them completely as if left in the compost or on the garden they will eat all the roots of your plants and the plants will die. I have just planted up a raised bed for someone & it was full of vine weevil. So instead of turfing out all the old compost (there was alot of it) – I watered in some ‘Nematodes’, biological control. These little insects find the vine weevil and kill them basically. You often water them in during the late summer when the adult beetle (Vine beetle) has laid it’s eggs, but as there were some overwintering ones I used it now. So that should eradicate the vine weevil in the compost, I shall check it again in a few weeks.
Till next time,
Toodle Pip,
Lucy