Bulletin 4 – late June 2020
We’re still rocking these beauties out! Tips and info on videos, factsheets and web articles from REAP and others galore! Keep on Growing Your Own and have fun whilst doing it – that’s the key! And do tell us how it’s going – we’re happy to share on our website and Facebook to help inspire others.
Have fun, enjoy the season and eat well!
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- Our Salad Collection (ooh!) and Country Garden (aah!) growing packs are still available! New growers of Elgin – come get free seeds and support from us in taking your first steps here.
- We have two (yes two!) new follow-on videos to May’s Sowing in Pots, Modules and Trays! Get your popcorn ready for Potting On and then Planting Out, where we complete the cycle for tender plants from seed to growing plant.
- Taking cuttings is an ace way of creating new perennial plants and so cheap too! At this time of year we take softwood cuttings of newer growth, as another new video shows – it’s a hat-trick!
- Nettles are so useful – they help our compost heap, make a lovely liquid feed, and they’re great for our health too, as we can drink and eat them! Check out the new factsheet.
- More and more people are getting on their bikes now, which is fantastic for reducing carbon emissions. Our new wee Basic Bike Check factsheet will help keep you safe and pedalling.
- Just a reminder that’s there’s loads of downloads of all sorts of factsheets, leaflets and more on our website; and of course keep checking our Facebook posts.
- Cabbage white butterflies are now fluttering here, there and everywhere – they’ll lay their eggs on your cabbages, kale, pak choi, broccoli and even radish! Then when the green caterpillars hatch they’ll munch your leaves, the swines! There’s various things you can do, like netting or spraying eco-friendly solutions – we can also vouch that the fun suggestion here of making your own decoy butterflies to deter them works – a wee activity for the kids perhaps?
- Remember of course that there’s food for free if you go foraging and know what to look out for – check out these resources by Wild Food UK, The Woodland Trust and Countryfile.
- It’s well worth checking out the Cultivating Wellbeing in Gardens and Nature resource offered by Thrive. There’s a range of tasks and resources to help you connect to nature in a way that works for you, creating your own health and wellbeing plan – lovely!
WHAT TO DO IN THE GARDEN NOW
- Hopefully the harvest is now rolling in, broad beans, peas, salad, strawbs and more – yum!
- Plant out any courgettes, squash and French beans left in pots (giving them a wee ‘lunch box’ of garden compost, manure pellets, seaweed feed etc.)
- Keep sowing annual herbs like parsley, coriander and basil for on-going crops.
- Time to plant out your wee kale, cabbage and broccoli plants in their final positions.
- Weed little and often to keep on top of the weeds and stop them establishing.
- There’s still time to sow carrots, chard, lettuces, radish and even French beans into your soil.
