Slugs, snails and puppy dog tails!

This weeks ingredients to our super salads and soups! 

 Slugs and snails required a very beery party this week along with some multiguard pellets - these turn into iron for my plants so are the only ones I will use now.  This beer trap had been down less than 12 hours!  Apparently slugs are not very picky (Swan Draught was bought for them by Hubby!) but not one of the giant snails that have been appearing in the middle of the lilies!

I went into the worm farm and came across more than a bargained for!  A new potato plant - still not sure how a whole potato made its way into the worm farm though.  The worms are looking extremely healthy and numbers are up too... ready for the new worm farm expansion.

I found a much better use for my ironing board on a rainy day... to hold up the 6 meter lengths of storm pipe while we used the hole saw every 15 - 16cm's!  Obviously with it raining I had LOTS of help.

  My furry helpers!

 As the weather fined up I started work on the new wicking pots for the Grape vine, Bay Leaf Tree and Fig Tree.   Corrugated pipe joined together then pierced with a pvc pipe for filling the reservoir.  Covered with 2 layers of weed mat to stop the reservoir filling with soil.  I then popped some sand in to act as the wick.  Now I just need the energy to fill the rest of the pots but we will get there :-D

The PVC pipe is cut on an angle at the bottom so it wont seal against the barrel or pipe.  In the second one I inserted the PVC pipe into the corrugated pipe and closed the other end with weed mat (yes it is a little messy but no one will see once it is done!

Super Salad and Soup ingredients for this week!

 Parsley, Coriander leaves and flowers, lettuces and mints (common and basil)... Kale, onions, chives, chive flowers and broad beans!

 Rainbow Chard, Nasturtium flowers, snow peas, dragons tongue beans, oregano and most importantly two of Grand-pop's Super Tomatoes!  Our very first for this season!  There are lots of purple sage flowers and leaves, a little rosemary, english spinach and nasturtium leaves.

Watercress, thyme and native violet flowers.

As we aren't using chemicals for the caterpillar problem we now not only have ladybirds and praying mantis' but also a steady supply of green caterpillars, crickets and other insects for our black faced wood swallow to eat!

So in the end we had a huge bowl of salad - I had to upgrade bowl size twice... this is my biggest mixing bowl!  I also, after making salad, felt like something different so made a vege soup :-)  

Happy Gardening!  *hugs* Sarah x