Protecting my Strawberries

My Strawberry plants have lots of flowers now, and the fruits are beginning to set, so I'm hoping for a much bigger crop than I had last year. [Wow, I might get a whole one pound this time!]

These fruits are only tiny now, but I know that once they get going they ripen pretty rapidly.

I also know that if I don't protect the fruit the birds will steal it as soon as it is ripe, so I have made myself a fruit cage. It consists of three of my mini greenhouses with the plastic overs removed and pelaced with a net held down by bricks and big stones:

There is enough space inside for the plants to stand well away from the net, so that little beaks will not be able to poke through and peck the ripening fruit.

It looks like an effective arrangment, but Blackbirds are devious creatures, so I'm not being complacent!

Problems with the Gaillardia

My Gaillardia plant is looking sick. Although it is putting up flower stems now, many of the leaves have gone brown.

It looks almost as if the leaves are burned. I know we have had plenty of bright sunshine recently, and more-or-less constant strong breezes, but I don't think it has been that hot. I think our maximum daytime temperature must have been about 20 or 21C. And I have been very good about watering.

I have another theory. Could it be acid burn? I mean acid in the sense of Fox urine? Maybe this plant has become a territorial marker for the nocturnal animals. Do you think this is possible / likely?

Just to give you something a bit nicer to look at in this post, here are a few pictures of some young lettuces:

Marvel of Four Seasons

Green Oak-Leaf

Delicato

Valdor

Fristina

 Pancalieri (an Endive, not a Lettuce)

Peas

Well, after a long time of waiting, my pea plants are just about to produce their crop. A classic of bad timing, since we are going away on holiday next week!

This is the sum total of my Pea-production efforts this year - two pots, containing about a dozen plants all told:

Amazingly, since these are effectively "Rescue Peas" (having originally been intended for eating as peashoots at the age of about 2 weeks), the plants are the healthiest ones I have ever grown. I think maybe it is because of the good ventilation they get. In the past, my peas have been much troubled with powdery mildew, which I know can be exacerbated by poor air circulation.

It won't be a big crop, that's for sure, but I reckon it might score well on the VSR scale. The pots don't take up much space, and the peas are likely to be much nicer than any peas you could buy in a shop, because they can be eaten within minutes of picking.

So here we are - the first pods are visible now!

Despite having decided NOT to grow peas any longer, because of a succession of poor harvests, I think I might change my mind and repeat this method next year.

Two days later....

Those pods certainly grow rapidly!

Tomatoes - a progress report

My tomatoes are looking very strong now. Many of them are about three feet tall, and some of them have their first flowers, though no fruit has set yet.

I have started feeding them now, because they have been in those pots for a few weeks now and the nutrients in the compost will have been considerably depleted. I use "Tomorite" proprietary tomato-food, though later in the year I will try to make some home-made Comfrey Tea (although my comfrey is looking very sparse this year, so it probably won't amount to much!)

This is a flower on "Cherokee Purple". It's a very complex flower for a tomato - almost "double".

Do you see how the upper leaves of the plant in the photo below are curled inwards, almost bunched-up? I used to be worried when this happened, but I researched it and found that this happens when the nights are too cold for the plant's comfort. We humans do the same when we are cold: we wrap our arms around ourselves and clench them tightly. No real harm is done, and the plant will unclench in due course.

My favourite colour combination

As most of you will know, I'm not a great one for growing flowers (though I am doing more in that area than previously), but I am very much aware of the aesthetic value of foliage. At present I am very keen on the yellow/purple colour combination.

This is it in small scale: Golden Thyme "Archer's Gold" and purple Oxalis "Burgundy Wine"

Here it is again with Variegated Sage and Purple Sage:

And here it is in larger scale: Golden Dogwood  / Cornus Alba "Aureum" and purple Cotinus "Royal Purple"



Can you get too much of a good thing?

Diana's Aquilegias

Last year I sowed some Aquilegia seeds kindly sent to me by Diana, whose blog is Kebun Malay-Kadazan Girls. She wouldn't tell me what colour they were, so I have had to be patient and find out for myself. It was worth the wait!

I had great difficulty in getting any photos of them that I was happy with. The stems of these plants are very slender, and the blooms blow about in the slightest breath of breeze - and it has been very windy here most of the time. Anyway, I think these photos demonstrate adequately the beautiful colours of these lovely flowers.

Recently I have developed a great interest in this plant variety, and am beginning to learn more about it. For instance, Sue, from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments, recently wrote an informative blogpost explaining about the variability in flower colour of Aquilegias, and how seeds may develop into a plant which has flowers of a completely different colour to its parent. Now I understand why Diana wouldn't tell me what colour the ones she sent me would be!

Diana, I hope you are reading this. Thank you very much for those seeds!

STOP PRESS! (Late addition, just before heading off on holidays...)

Tulips

The two pink Tulips that "accidentally" bloomed in my garden were lovely while they lasted:

But (to quote a well-known sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus) they are now ex-Tulips; they have ceased to be; they are bereft of life; they rest in peace...

I just hope they re-appear in all their finery next year.

By the way, having seen Monty Don talking about this on Gardener's World, I have now removed the heads of these Tulips to stop them trying to form seeds, and therefore to conserve their energy for next year.