Veg Plotting

I'm loving the sweet peas I've started picking this week. They're such an easy and bountiful plant to grow, though it nearly didn't happen for me this year, as lingering long Covid meant I got terribly behind with all things garden. Luckily there were trays of seedlings on offer a couple of months ago when I went shopping at Lidl which was an opportunity too good to miss. I just about had enough energy to improvise a couple of supporting tripods from bamboo and plonk them in a couple of my grow pots going free. These are usually part of my patio allotment, so it was great to find an alternative use for them. And here they are, the flowers now gracing the vase my aunty Lily gave me decades ago. I had no idea on the colours or scent on offer and I'm pleased to find plenty of the darker shades and scent I love in this selection. It's been mentally uplifting to have such a positive result from a much darker time earlier this year. I've wanted to grow flowers for...

What a quiet spring we had pest-wise here at VP Gardens , apart from hordes of aphids which obviously like the dry sunny weather we've had. Thank goodness I've learned patience over the years to leave them and sure enough the small garden birds targeted the roses and carried off beak fulls to feed their young voraciously calling for attention at the bottom of the garden. Elsewhere, plentiful ladybird larvae cleared the blackfly from my dahlias in a matter of days. The one pictured above has grown large and fat on what was on offer and is ready to pupate and transform itself into the adults we love to see. Now we're in June - and with a fairly reasonable rainfall - other pests have arrived in droves to be dealt with. For some strange reason I only ever find rose sawfly caterpillars on my 'Kew Gardens' rose, perhaps its position in the middle of the garden is a favourable to the unseen incoming adults? Luckily, they readily show themselves (as shown above) when I do a...