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Saturday, July 30, 2011

Glasshouse Growing

I've been eating a few greens from the garden with my eggs on toast these past mornings.  I'm rather chuffed to finally have some greens producing in my own little backyard.  My previous attempts this year were eaten to the ground by some maurauding, teeth-gnashing beast!  I never did work out what.  This lot, though, have mostly survived.  I've lost a few lettuces, but I think all the spinach made it.  Even my older perpetual spinach plants which were eaten to the bone have revived and are producing a few leaves.  The trick?  I sprayed everything with Helix Tosta homeopathic remedy...it helps keep slugs and snails at bay.  I put some beer in bottles around the edges to entice any slugs that did make it through.  Leaning a brick against the side of the garden over the top of the jar seems to keep the rain out.  Similar trick with bleach to keep the cats from digging and doing in my dirt!  Then I covered as many plants as I could with plastic juice bottles (lids removed, bums cut off and pushed into the soil).  Lastly, I covered the entire lot with bird netting.  Finally, I get to eat some of my own food! 




And a bonus: the juice bottles make lovely little glasshouses.  The spinach and lettuce inside them are growing really well!




Amy

1 comment:

Elizabeth said...

Wow - so much effort to keep them alive... good for you, I'd never have the patience to go to those lengths!