The veg garden in May

Here are some piccies of our veg garden taken a few weeks ago.

The first is an overview of the roots bed.



















This one focusses on the onions and emerging carrots. I'm sowing onions between rows of carrots and parsnips in an attempt to deter carrot fly. I've planted French marigolds in this bed for the same reason. The pot marigolds are also meant to be beneficial and they seem more resistant to slugs, snails and pigeons.

Next is a view of the broadbeans, which I started in pots at the end of January and planted in the ground when the bed was ready in February, along with some peas sown late April. The bowl on the path is for collecting bindweed, which promises to be our best crop. The plan is to let the roots dry out completely, but with the rain we had recently they perked up and started to sprout.
There was quite a bit of black fly on the broad beans so I resorted to spraying them with an organic spray made by Growing success. Two sprays seem to have done the trick and the pods are now filling out nicely. I would prefer not to have to spray them at all, though.


Last but not least is the brassicas bed, which is shared with the rhubarb and also tomatoes, courgette and pepper. The brassicas (cabbage family) in there at the moment are sprouts.

This was the bed where I grew broad beans last year, and the nitrogen they fixed in the soil should help to grow healthy leafy crops, so that is a good reason for brassicas to follow legumes (peas and beans) in a crop rotation system.

We're not expert vegetable growers and we are experimenting with several things we don't normally grow, so we are waiting to see how they all develop and hoping for the best. Slugs and snails seem to be the biggest problem so far, but mostly during the really wet weather.

At the back of the bed you may see some nettles, which are left deliberately for butterflies. The white at the back is an old duvet being used to supress weeds until we have time to dig the area.