The Bees are back in town

Now we've had a longer spell of fine weather I'm very happy to see an increase in the number of bees in the garden. We've also had to rescue two from the house this week - an enormous bumblebee was trapped indoors on Monday and today after the children had gone I discovered a very folorn little Mason bee trundling around on my son's carpet. She perked up considerably after I deposited her on the Oregano. A good feed later and she was happily cleaning herself up. Then undoubtedly she was off to do her good work elsewhere, bless her.
The Borage is just coming into flower (though I'm continually having to prop it up) so that should keep a few more bees happy.

Produce Alert!

Seems I finally have my first courgette (and indeed my first ever vegetable) starting to mature. We've spent the last 3 weeks or so eating fried courgette flowers (I call them crisps in order to get my daughter to eat them. The gullibility of a 2-year-old!) and delicious as they are, I have been wondering whether I was fated to only ever get male flowers. It's the females that come with courgettes attached you see.

So here it is - apparently you harvest 2-4 days after they flower. Come on!

Gertrude Jekyll and Mr Hyde

As an aside during all this blasted rain, I was interested to find out recently that the Jekyll family name was the inspiration behind the title 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' by Robert Louis Stevenson. Gertrude's younger brother was a friend of R.L's. Marvellous!

The only Jekyll garden I've seen is the one on Lindisfarne, where I could only peer over the gate. I'd love to see more and learn about this lady.

Public Enemy No. 1, Part 2.

..this little bugger, his brother & various neighbourhood felines that troop in and out of our garden & flat. The one saving grace our two have is that they don't kill birds and never have. I'm with Chris Packham in bewailing the fact that our nation's sentimentality towards cats does the native bird population no good at all. For that reason and the fact that they make it bloody hard to garden I will heavily resist all family attempts to get more once ours are gone.

Web forums are full of gardeners pleading with others to reveal the secrets of how to keep the furry fiends from using their flowerbeds as litter trays. Water pistols & lion dung seem frequently to come top of the list, but I know the former doesn't work & I have my doubts about the latter.

What's worked for me (so far at least) is a combination of chicken wire surrounding delicate young plants & cocoa shell mulch

The cocoa shell mulch is supposed to help prevent slug & snail attack too. Once you've planted up you spread a thick layer & water it well. It forms a crust on which the cats are not keen on doing their business. Smells nice & chocolatey too!

Catmint

I visited Kenwood House, Hampstead recently. In the old kitchen garden they'd planted huge swathes of Catmint. I have never seen so many bumblebees in all my days; there must have been hundreds happily gathering nectar. I went straight on to the garden centre in Highgate & bought a nice bushy plant for the garden. A week or so later it was a pretty forlorn, flattened specimen. This would be something to do with..

So much for being wildlife-friendly

Having put these so-called 'organic' slug pellets down, I've realised how much that contradicts the notion of having a wildlife friendly garden. Back to the drawing board...

Public Enemy No 1, part 1

I'm engaged in a war of attrition with slugs & snails right now. I'm losing, big time. My smallest hollyhocks (still potted up) were decimated a few days ago. And 2 of my 3 Burnet plants. Less ribaldry to be had there then. I'd made the mistake of leaving them out overnight, forgetting that snails love to munch on young, tender plants when it's dark. Today I checked outside and the Marigolds I'd potted up as companion-plants-in-waiting to my tomatoes had disappeared. A few smug-looking slugs were still hanging about by them and in my potato planter.

And this is despite my Marigold pots being carefully bound in copper tape. This is supposed to create a charge uncomfortable to the little buggers if they try to cross. I guess that if they're hungry enough they will put up with some discomfort to get to their munchies. So now it's on to slug pellets compatible with organic gardening, to wit 'Growing Success Advanced Slug Killer', a a bait containing ferric phosphate which kills them off. We'll see if they work - but there's only one Marigold plant left to save at the moment and that looks pretty forlorn!

According to the RHS ' Most plants, once established, will generally tolerate slug damage and control measures can be discontinued' - I think Marigolds are possibly not in the 'most plants' category!

Digging for Victory

I've joined the ranks of the British public who, in the grip of the credit crunch have gone fruit & veg crazy. My first attempt at growing edibles in a confined space is the humble potato. I bought this special planter from Crocus.
It was a bit fiddly to put together but seems sturdy enough to last a few years. I planted the seed potatoes it came with, added compost gradually & they've grown at a fair old pace. Apparently once it comes into flower I can harvest. Fingers crossed, when I lift up the sliders there will be lots of potatoes waiting for the pot!

Looking forward to some ribaldry

According to Paghat's Garden, Salad Burnet (Poterium sanguisorba) was loved by the Elizabethans who "would float the leaves in a glass of wine, because in the poetic language of flowers popular at the time, Salad Burnet indicated a merry mood or ribald gathering"

Sounds good to me!

I'll be floating it alongside some Borage in my Pimms at our next ribald gathering if it all survives. Watch this space..

The Herbs

This is the bit of the garden I managed to get going last year, after grubbing out a Buddleia (sorry butterflies, I'll make it up to you, I promise), several concrete slabs, pieces of old washing machine, some indeterminate groundcover plant, tons of ivy and a packet of butter. Yes, butter.

It's my mission to make the garden bee-friendly. I love bees. In addition to the existing Sage, Rosemary, Thyme & Lavender I've just planted the beautifully named Bee Balm, or Bergamot. I fear it may take over, but we shall see.

I also have waiting to be planted out some Summer Savoury, Hyssop (I think I have some in already but my terrible habit of not labelling stuff has come back to bite me) and Burnet. I got all these off Ebay sellers after flogging my daughter's old clothes the week before!

The Borage I had in last summer attracted tons of bees, but it all fell over and the stems split so it is no more. I'll not make the same mistakes this year; I'm starting it off indoors this year (it seeded very well when sown outdoors last time & is a prolific self-seeder), it will be planted in greater profusion & given some support. Apparently it's a good companion plant for tomatoes too & improves the flavour, so I hope it'll keep my Gardener's Delight plants happy when those finally makes their way outdoors..

Our Back Yard

So this is the view of my (fairly) blank canvas, after some work by a fantastic guy called Steve & his team, who levelled out the lawn (removing about half a ton of rubble in the process) & laying the deck. I'm not normally a great fan of decking but we needed to make the area a bit more child-friendly & hide the hideous concrete slabs masquerading as a terrace of sorts..

We're overlooked by masses of trees from adjacent gardens, so sun is at a premium & I think I'll mostly be looking at plants that are happy with a shady life.

The first post

Welcome to the first post of my first blog. This will be (mostly) about attempting to create an urban haven for my family and local wildlife in my back garden in the heart of London. Here goes..