Quote:
Originally Posted by Engel
Ah, what have you tried planting?
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I planted a row of carrot seeds with a row of leek and onion seeds either side of the row of carrot seeds (apparently planting leeks next to carrots either side deters the carrot root fly!) I ran out of leek seeds so continued with onion seeds. I also planted some cabbage seeds and beetroot.
The carrots are growing and so are the leeks. Haven't seen much sign of the onions. There is one plant growing in the beetroot/cabbage end but it might be a weed!
I am now supposed to "thin" the carrot seedlings so there is only one plant every few inches. But I'm not looking forward to that as apparently once you "bruise" the foliage of the carrot plants it attracts the carrot root fly (which is a really awful pest apparently and can make the carrots go black). So you're supposed to try and "thin" them out by picking out the seedlings lower down below the foliage and burn the seedlings you remove! Wish I hadn't planted carrots now! Anyway they look ok at the moment but I haven't thinned them yet.
Apparently carrot root fly can be attracted by the smell for miles but they fly at very low level so if you have a perspex playpen type thing round the veg bed they can't get in. I am not that organised but I did let the grass grow very long round the edges of my small veg bed! Actually very long all over the garden as we don't have enough petrol for the strimmer and are still self isolating at home/shielding so not going out!
Will get the shears onto the grass soon and then have some garden fleece I was going to put over the top of the veg bed until the plants are a bit bigger and stronger. Partly to prevent birds and next door's cat wrecking it but might help keep the carrot root fly away as well.
I have two potato bags I intended to plant seed potatoes in but haven't got round to that yet - hope it isn't too late. That is supposed to be quite easy. Any bag will do. Even a bin bag- but these are stiff cloth bags. You put a few inches of compost - then the seed potatoes, then another layer of compose - and water them occasionally. As they're outside and it rains a lot here I'm not sure they will need watering!
If you don't have seed potatoes, apparently you can just use some potatoes you have already that have started to sprout!