Sow What?

Kill a slug for Christmas

The middle of November and we are all really enjoying giving the garden and vegetable plot a good tidy.  We all enjoy raking up the leaves (when the tree is 5 gardens away), clearing out flower beds, starting to dig over the vegetable plot and cutting back the last of the summer flowers and beans but there is one little, tiny, simple job that is really important.  Whilst clearing the flower beds and edges of the vegetable plot look out for slug eggs. Read the rest of this entry →

There are some interesting facts about the summer of 2010 which may go some way to explaining any successes or failures in the garden this year.  The mean temperature, this summer, across the whole of the UK was 14.6 °C, which is 0.6 °C above average.  However when we break this down, the mean temperature was 1.5 °C above average during June, 0.7 °C above during July and 0.5 °C below in August.  The cloudy conditions during August also resulted in daytime temperatures being lower which gave us the coolest August since 1993.  Read the rest of this entry →

Sow What? – September

Carefully chosen flowers such as this Buddleia, will attract lots of beneficial insects to your vegetable garden

A guru I may be but predicting the future is not something I profess to be too good at.  Despite last month’s tips on the hot weather, August has not been the hottest month on record, in fact it has been quite cool.  Therefore many crops may be later ripening and some will be giving quite poor returns.  However, despite rainfall having been quite high, there is still a need to conserve water and be a little careful as September is predicted to be quite dry and warm.  Now that the children are back at school, parents may have the opportunity at last to put away garden toys and pay some attention to garden maintenance before the weather turns too cool and daylight hours too short.  We have seen quite a few hoverflies this Summer, which is great news.  Looking rather like wasps (in order to protect themselves from predators) they are quite harmless.  Hoverfly larvae like to feed on aphids and so they should be attracted to the garden by planting flowers in the vegetable plot as the adult hoverfly feeds on nectar and pollen.  We planted nicandra flowers next to our brassicas which has definitely helped our fight against the whitefly! Read the rest of this entry →

Original Touch is shortly to announce a series of gardening advice road shows.  Buoyed by the positive feedback from recent public talks and a number of appearance requests from local gardening clubs plans are underway for a number of talks during the autumn of 2010.  Original Touch director, Samantha Ford, said “we are very excited about the plans we are making and they are all the result of the great feedback we have received following recent talks for the Co-Op and local gardening groups.  During the past couple of years so many people have taken up gardening and especially growing their own vegetables and the thirst for knowledge is immense.  We like to keep things fairly simple and fun so we concentrate on crop rotation, companion planting, natural pest control and new or unusual seed varieties.  We are planning to also talk about herbs and the many varieties we can all grow, mostly very easily.  We all have knowledge to learn and knowledge to give ”.

Talks are already confirmed such as with the Lincolnshire Organic Gardeners Association on October 25th in Lincoln (venue details) where, it will not be a surprise to learn, organic gardening is the topic.

The new dates are due to be announced by the end of August once final venue arrangements have been confirmed.

If you would like Original Touch to talk to your group or have an idea for a presentation then why not let us know.  You can call us on 01673 866677 or email us, or why not leave a comment here, and we’ll get back to you straight away.