h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oh dear, I've been very lax about keeping this journal about my veg patch up to date

Anyway, it's mid-May and things are really happening out there now

Indoors all the pots, troughs and containers are planted up with tomatoes, peabeans, soya beans (first time), cucumbers, chilli peppers, capsicums, coriander, dill, basil and carrots (for a sweet early trough-grown crop).

I planted out all my runner, climbing french and borlotti beans a couple of weeks ago. They're growinig up bamboo canes (collected from the bamboo patch at work) which provide great support. However, I planted the poor beans 24 hours before gales and lashing rain hit my garden and they all look the worse for it: whitened leaves and some die-off I think that the calmer and much warmer conditions of the past week have settled them in and there's a lot of new growth visible. I just have to hope that the weather forecasters are wrong about the frost they're predicting for Thursday night, because climbing beans will not survive a frost. I'll be out there with armfuls of fleece to wrap them up

The squashes and courgettes will also need covering up if there's a frost. They're all out in the beds too, as are 12 tomato plants, which I'm growing specifically for green fruit. For chutney

The squash, courgettes and tomato beds were very heavily manured earlier in the year. Then just before I planted them out, I dug holes for the squashes and courgettes and a trench for the tomatoes, which I filled with good rich compost mined out from the bottom of the heap. This should ensure good growth and plenty of fruit. They are incredibly heavy feeders and you really cannot give them too much compost and manure.

The garlic, planted out in November, is healthier than any I've grown before and the onions, planted out at Easter, are also better than ever. Strong green growth and taller than I expected. They should both produce bumper crops. The reasons for success aren't clear to me, but more than likely just the right kind of weather at the right times for alliums this spring

The broad beans are in flower and attracting heaps of bumble bees . There are patches of wildflowers throughout the veg beds, which bring in pollinators, as well as predators of aphids and other pests. They add a great splash of colour as well as being good for the veggies.

The mixed salad crop is thriving and there'll be a huge pick this evening - which my neighbours won't mind It's a mixture of mustard greens, paak tsoi, rocket, spinach, mizuna. It can be cut off with scissors to make into salad, then grows up again and again and again. The patch 1m x 1m should keep me in leaves all summer. And to that I add lovage, nasturtium, chives, mint and other herbs, as the mood takes me.

The only disappointing seedlings at the moment are the brassicas. They haven't liked the hot sunny weather of the past week and have fried. So I'll have small crops unless I can find somebody who has surplus

There is always something that fails, however well organised you are and no matter how well you plan the garden. It was onions last year. They were eaten by voles and I had to re-plant the entire bed Oh, and voles got the peas too...

I promised voles some time ago....

Let me tell you about them. The little ers!

They breed like... ... voles. They like warm, well-drained, dry soil. They nest beneath roots and in dry hay or straw (well, in my veg patch that's where they nested). They are particularly fond of plastic mulches, but lacking that they'll hang out in any kind of mulch - hay, grass cuttings, under carpet...

They eat anything soft, tender and sweet. I've lost beetroots, carrots, onions, brassica seedlings (all of them 2 years ago ), peas, the odd potato, dwarf french beans (don't even bother to grow them any more) and courgettes.

I don't believe in killing voles, or anything I share the garden with, so I have to learn to work around them.

After much trial and error, I have discovered there are some basic rules about dealing with voles.

- They don't like wet soil, so I keep it moist all the time.

- They do like mulches, so I've cut down on early season mulching, which is when the voles are at their most active.

- They can't climb smooth plastic to get at seedlings, so I put plastic collars around my brassicas and squashes/courgettes, made from 450g yoghurt containers with the bottoms cut out.

- Around 2 x 2m beds I've placed a plastic 'fence' made from Eaves Ventilation Roll (available at any good builders' merchant for £10 per 15m), buried 10cm into the soil, leaving 20cm free-standing. In one of these beds I grow my peas. In the other, root crops and salads.

- Towards the autumn they do a lot of tunnelling and those tunnels stay in use all winter and into the spring, so I've abandonned no-dig gardening principles and dig over each patch of veggie bed as soon as it becomes vacant to destroy the tunnels.

Moles are a different proposition altogether and I'm afraid I resort to the local MoleMan to deal with them


Fb

Voles you say? I loves voles - thems one of my favourite varmints to chase around I'll sort your vole problem out for you, if you knows what I mean

Got any fish for me? I'll take chicken if you ain't

Dewey the
Just call me T-Bone

Hello Deweycat OW!

I can't entertain cats here, sadly, because there's a small, but straight road right behind my house, which is too dangerous to pets that can't be kept in the garden

Otherwise, you'd be more than welcome. So long as you promise not to scratch


Fb

Hi Dewey!

Fb, it sounds like your garden is off and running.

I got behind myself and still have a few things to set out. The weather around here has been most uncooperative. When I am at home and able to work in the garden, the soil is too wet to dig. It's very frustrating.

I have a lovely salad bed and am picking tons of snow peas for F's favorite - stirfry. I think he was Chinese in a previous lifetime, because he loves Chinese food so much. My cucumbers and squashes (zucchini, yellow crookneck and white patty pan)are up as are the pole beans. My corn is also up and .....drumroll....I have setting on. . My peppers are just sitting there, however. But the eggplants have taken off and are growing like crazy. I have kale up and chard. I lost my spinach. And my cabbages are definitely sick.

But you should see my peach tree! It is so loaded with peaches that I'm going to have to prop up some of the branches. The nectarine tree is almost as loaded, but for some reason the fruits are dropping off. I will have a small crop of sweet cherries - if I can keep the birds out of them. And a small crop of green gague plums. It is the first year for both of them to bear. And my grapes are setting on. The blackberry bushes are getting ready to bloom and I noticed tiny apples the other day on one of the apple trees that I didn't think would bear until next year.

I wish I could win the lottery so I could afford to stay home and actually take proper care of things.

H