Madeleine's Corner: Feast or Famine

Well it seems to be feast or famine with the rain, watering was not an issue last week! At least here in Wiltshire anyhow.

The peas, broad beans, lettuces are all ready for harvesting. If you have too many lettuces – give some away, they won’t last. Hopefully you have another lot coming up soon.

If you planted beetroot, you can use some of the smaller leaves in a salad. You may also need to thin out your beetroot, cooking the little golf ball sized ones, leaving space in the ground for the others to grow. Keep the edges of your patches under control, the grass is still growing and before you know it, it has invaded your patch and is spreading weeds.

The fruits and berries have been unbelievable. There have been so many I haven’t known what to do with them. So pick them all before the birds and slugs beat you and put them into the deepfreeze waiting until you have time to either make a jam or incorporate them into a pudding. Remember that Strawberries come out like jelly if you freeze them.

Keep an eye on the slugs, greenfly and caterpillars. Pinch off any caterpillars, re-home the slugs, and I suppose spray the greenfly. Do it or you will lose your crops. Slugs come out at dusk, so if you are really keen take a torch. Sow some more carrots for the winter and some more basil to see you through the summer.

WIN Haxnicks Easy Tunnels with Kitchen Garden Magazine

The July issue of Kitchen Garden Magazine contains a fantastic competition to win £75 worth of Giant Easy Tunnels!

To win the set of tunnels pictured, all you need to do is buy a copy of Kitchen Garden Magazine (available from garden centres, newsagents and supermarkets).  Turn to page 91 for the above prize information, and then on to page 101 to fill in the form to enter.  Alternatively, you can visit Kitchen Garden's Web site competition area and enter online.

Good luck!

Madeleine's Corner: Glorious English Summer

Glorious English Summer – well it is one minute and then not the next. One is never sure whether to water the garden or will the Good Lord do it for you? Just make sure if you can help it that it is neither feast nor famine. Lack of water means that your crops such as spinach and lettuce bolt: so water evenly. Anyhow, Last week there was an awful lot of weeding to be done, if you don’t do it the weeds take all the energy from the soil and your peas turn out more like pinheads, and your carrots will never grow. Which reminds me thin your carrots, I know this seems harsh but it’s worth it. Thin them to 1 every 2” 5cm.

I use Haxnicks Speedhoe for saving energy and time weeding, and Haxnicks Micromesh to protect Carrots from Carrot Fly (especially important when thinning out as the Carrot Fly will no doubt get a whiff off the seedlings that have been removed).

Cover any berries you have with netting, Bamboo Fruit Cages or rig up some Birdscare or old CD’s so that the birds don’t beat you to the crop, once they discover them there won’t be any left for you. Pick and eat Rhubarb, soft fruits, lettuces, broad beans and asparagus, pick some of the small beetroot leaves for a salad. Take the last of your plants to be planted outside and get them in the vegetable patch. Sow another batch of lettuce (if you do this monthly you will get lettuces all year round), rocket and radishes.

How to secure your plants with Soft-Tie ~ Plus WIN a free pack!

Haxnicks' Soft-Tie is a special reusable rubber compound coated wire that has a never ending list of uses in the home and garden.

Here we are going to show you how you can use it to train your Tomatoes, Sunflowers, Sweet Peas, Runner Beans, Grapevines or any other plant that might need to be secured as it shoots up.

Cut off lengths of Soft-Tie with a pair of wire cutters, or a pair of pliers that are designed to cut wire as above.

 

You may then tie your  plants on to your supports (in this case a bamboo cane).  Be careful that you don't tie them too tightly.

Perhaps you might want to create more of a gap between support and plant.  Why not try this fancy technique?

If you are trying to train a climbing plant along a piece of fence or trellis, simply tie the plant stem along at regular intervals.  Use the above picture as a rough guide if you like.

Watch the amazing Soft-Tie YouTube video here.

Haxnicks Soft-Tie - durable, flexible, reusable. Choose from Original, Woody, Slim and Slim Woody.

If you would like to WIN a roll of Soft-Tie, simply become a follower of this blog and we will contact you to arrange delivery of your free gift!

How to Sow Carrots in Patio Planters

So you want to grow your own Carrots?  Well, not only do we sell Carrot Planters that make it easy to grow perfectly formed carrots on your patio, we've also got some helpful advice on how to get started:

Step 1: Add a layer of gravel to the bottom of your planter, just level with the drainage holes.	Step 2: Add multipurpose compost up to 4cm/1½ inches from the top of the Planter and water if very dry.
Step 3: Mark out 2 trenches 1/2 inch/13mm deep 6ins/15cm apart. I’ve used a bamboo cane here, but you can use a 'dibber' or even a finger if you like!	Step 4: Empty seeds into the palm of your hand – this will make it easier to space the seeds out when you go to sow them in the ‘drills’ you made.

SOW LIKE THE EXPERTS: Starting with the little finger, roll each digit in a 'mexican wave' fashion so that the seeds roll off the side of your palm. This takes a bit of practice, so try doing it on a folded sheet of paper first.

Remember to sow thinly, carrots need space and 'thinning out' will only increase the risk of attracting carrot fly.

Cover over the drills you made with compost and water using a watering can. Make sure the ‘rose’ head attachment is fixed on securely so you don’t wash all the seeds away!

Subscribe to the blog for more 'how-to' posts like this!

Haxnicks at the Malvern Spring Show

Kim Aldred (Assistant to the Sales Director) will be running the Haxnicks stand again this year, and would like to welcome all of the visitors to her favourite spring event.


"Malvern is such a great show - you get to meet so many gardening enthusiasts, young and old - and there are also loads of bargains to be had.  I love it!"

Kim's sister Danielle preparing the stand with Tom

Kim and her team are on hand to answer any questions you may have about Haxnicks products and competitions.

They can be found at stand number 514 at The Malvern Spring Show from 12th - 15th May.

Growing Potatoes: 'Earthing Up'

In a previous blog we encouraged you to try 'chitting' - how are you getting on?  Here's how the official Haxnicks potato planter is doing - not bad, but we are sure you can do better, especially with this next piece of advice:

Tip: 'Earthing Up'
In terms of your Haxnicks Potato Patio Planter - this is the process of adding more soil around the stems of your potato plant to encourage the plants to produce more tubers.  Simply keep adding compost as the plants grow!

If you would like to win £100 and other Haxnicks goodies simply by growing potatoes - check out our Great Potato Gold Rush Competition.

Learn more about using Potato Patio Planters here

Don't forget to keep watering your Potatoes and let us know how you get on!