It’s fallow!

It’s not being lazy, it’s having a fallow year!

This year, gardening has taken a back seat.  We have a path cut through to the shed but other than that the grass hasn’t been cut.  We haven’t been weeding or crop growing, other than the perennial soft fruits and some horseradish and herbs that have done it all themselves.

The bonus of this is we have a wildlife garden.

We have a Buddleia bush attracting butterflies, nettles for caterpillars, brambles for blackberries, teasels for seeds later in the season which attract flocks of goldfinches and we have undergrowth for slugs snails and minibeasts. We have bats each evening swooping after clouds of insects, frogs are regularly seen heading towards the ponds and the cats are enjoying hunting for rodents.

OMG OMG OMG a hedgehog has just had its scrunchy-snail-lunch next to me as I hung out the washing. Haven’t had a hedgehog here in years. Very pleased. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Mr Sprig and youth think I’m slightly bonkers. Never mind! IT WAS A HEDGEHOG!

(No pic though as it was under the nettles and my commitment to you doesn’t extend to nettle rash!)

Trust me, next year I will be on top of crop growing and everything, but will plan in all overgrown edges to keep the wildlife happy. This year we are enjoying the fallow aspect and seeing what turns up next. An owl would be nice. Or a buzzard.

Cauliflower Catastrophe or a Caterpillar Conundrum

It’s a bit of a disaster area.

The nasturtiums have looked amazing, the butterflies have danced appealingly, the vegetables have grown enthusiastically.

 

Only now it’s all gone wrong.

I have been a dutiful, eagle eyed, gardener and have squished the little collections of cabbage white butterfly eggs every time I have spotted them.  I have ensured the veggies never went thirsty when it didn’t rain.  I checked for slugs. I may even have been spotted talking to the plants.

  But then I got too busy; several days intensive sewing and now the garden looks like a wreck.  Caterpillars in their thousands appeared.   I leapt out there and squished rather a lot of them, until my back gave up.  Then I went and did it again the next day, and the next.

Only it wasn’t enough.

HOW VORACIOUS ARE THESE THINGS?

 

Look at the state of my veggies, and the nasturtiums – no more flower petals in my salad then, and I’m not sure the Romanesque cauliflowers will ever make it past the baby stage.

  

There must be a better way. There has to be an answer.  I must come up with a different plan for growing next years vegetables.  I don’t really want to ‘cage’ areas of the garden.  I was already contemplating a fruit cage, but a veg cage too?  No. And I definitely don’t want to be using sprays out there.   Maybe I’ll have to be really selective which veggies I grow.  Nothing that appeals to a Cabbage White.  Perhaps I should loiter around the allotments and glean info from the growers over there.

On the plus side the coffee sack bags all looked great, and I’ve had great feedback from the customer.

Looking at the side of the house there are a number of chrysalis formed already, and I feel oddly happy about that- even after I’ve squished so many there are still going to more back next year to dance appealingly.