No dig update

I have in fact managed to fill every box this year, which was a bit of a surprise. That is, the homemade tomato green house is still waiting for plants, as the cucumbers need at least 15° C and it’s still about 5 at night here. Last year I built a smaller version from the remains of my windswept greenhouse, so I extended and added plastic. Perhaps it’ll blow off in the first storm, but it was worth a shot.

newgreenhouse1

After checking night temps with plastic on, I’ve decided to move out the tomatoes and use the candle trick at night. If that works better than intended, I’ll move the cucumbers as well, just have to remember lighting them every night! *

newgreenhouse2

New to me are peas – and this time round I knew to cover them up before birds pick them out of the ground, which is what happened first time I tried, many years ago. Yeah yeah, I know this is not how you do it, but I had this wad of netting sitting in our hopeless garage, previously recovered from an overgrown strawberry bed. It’ll do the job of keeping pesky crows out, right?

nodig9

So now I’m debating whether to use the remaining frames (we got a bunch of battered boxes for free) to make my beds higher, or whether I could make and use another row. It’s not like we use our lawn for anything but mowing.

I’ve always had an urge to grow things, I can’t even trim a potted plant without trying to make roots on the clippings, regardless that I don’t want or have the space for 10 copies of the same type. I just feel guilty about throwing out something living. As I feel guilty about not being able to help the stray tom with bad eyes who keeps trying to break into our house, fights my own cats with ongoing risk of vet visits, pees on everything in my stable and just ought to drop dead basically so we can catch up on lost sleep…

nodig10

Strawberries are flowering as if they were paid to, and I’ve managed to clean up most of the bed in very short installments. Yum! Dare I hope for a birthday cake? There, I said it again. Cake. CAKE!


* Which incidentally it didn’t, only 10° C in there this morning.

9 thoughts on “No dig update

  1. All looking so good and on its way to harvest! At first i thought that bird netting ( over your peas) looked like nicely carded green fiber! Love this time of year, everyday some amazing growth in the gardens…..and food! Hope you do have cake for your birthday!!

  2. Det er absolut nødbvendigt med jordbærkage, når man har fødselsdag i jordbærsæsonen, hvilket jeg også har. Kage er en livsnødvendighed.
    Mine tomater og peberfrugter står også og fryser i drivhuset, og vil ikke rigtig gro. Jeg håber dine tomater overlever og snart begynder at gro.

    1. Jeg er et kagemonster. Det er et fantastisk eksempel på viljestyrke at sammenligne mængden af kage jeg spiser, med den mængde jeg tænker på! 😉

  3. What a lot of work your garden must be! But it sounds like you’re happy there. Is the idea with the candles that bring them rises the temp just enough to keep the plants from damage?

    1. It is a lot of work and most of it doesn’t get done. But the boxes are easy – never mind that I have more knee high grass than anything else in my flower beds…. I’ve finally been able to cultivate the habit of doing things by 15 minute intervals. Whereas previously I thought I had to have energy for hours of work and I never do! And strangely enough, many times 15 gets more done than 1×60 😉

      Yes, the candles keep the temperature up, not enough for the cucumbers however. But according to the forecast I should be able to liberate the kitchen window from them on Sunday! (with the help of candles)

  4. All of this is so familiar – crowded pots and inability to throw anything living out and even a tom cat who behaves like a terrorist! (We kept him in our cellar and I had to work as a traffic controller as he couldn’t come out when the other cats were outside; sadly he died last month and we miss him so much…)

    Well, I hope you get loads of berries and peas this year and that your cucumbers and tomatoes will appreciate all the hard work you have put in looking after them. K.

Add a comment: