Watering, picking and dead heading to keep the garden going is flavour of the month.  The AQUADRIP Watering Spikes, attached to recycled bottles are watering the tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers efficiently so I don’t have to be too concerned about those but the vegetable  seedlings need looking at constantly.  I have decided to  place them on a tray covered in Natural Slug and Snail Deterrent and pouring on water then putting the pots on top to keep them constantly damp.  It helps to keep any slimy creatures away and stops my seedlings from drying out.

The herbaceous border is looking a picture with a great variety of colourful plants.  The star has to be Helenium `moerheim Beauty’ it’s a real favourite of mine.  I also love Lychnis coronaria that has self seeded everywhere, more plants for free! I am a great believer in collecting flower and vegetable seed and using the following year or giving to friends. I also know it will be happy in my garden and resistant to any pests.

Talking of pests we have recently been visited by some deer.  Our gate was left open and in they strolled grazing on the plants as they looked about.  There was not too much damage done, but Sedums seemed to satisfy their appetite and every flower head was eaten.  They also munched happily on the raspberries.  Luckily we have quite a few and they are the Autumn fruiting variety so not fully fruiting yet.  Fortunately, the  rattan cloches were protecting most of the salad and vegetables in the vegetable garden.  It took us an hour to get the deer out as they can only come into the garden through the gate, all other boundaries are deer fenced and we have two acres of garden of which some is woodland.  Good exercise for us first thing in the morning.

Hot Summers day in the garden!

The Vegetable garden is surrounded by box hedging and with the changeable weather we are a little late in trimming it.  We started this week because of the lack of hot sunshine and hopefully the cut edges won’t get scorched. Quite a laborious job but looks so good when it’s finished