A ‘spring’ in our step after some winter woes

Date posted: 12 August 2020

It has been an incredibly cold winter with frosts occurring this year, which has unfortunately damaged many of the plants in the Kitchen Garden.

Stevia, which doesn’t tolerate cold conditions well anyway, has sadly succumbed to the frosts and the cheeky little ducks have raided the lettuces.

After removing the protecting netting on a Friday, we returned to the garden to find all of the green lettuce varieties and most of the coloured varieties destroyed. We're not sure why, but we've found the ducks to be a bit more of a problem this year than in previous years.

We have now re-netted all the plots in order to protect the plants.

If you're experiencing similar issues, we've had feedback that swan sculptures tend to keep the ducks at bay. I wasn’t able to find any swans at a reasonable price but I did identify a nice metal, full-size model of a crane, so I’m thinking about giving it a try. Maybe pink flamingos could work. I'll keep you posted!

We have just finished selecting our spring/summer plants which will include some lovely flowers for the bees – amaranth, poppies and zinnias just to name a few.

The vegetables will include root crops such as swedes, beetroot, turnips and parsnips.

Potatoes have already been planted by the Southern Montessori School reception children who were the first school to embark on the Little Sprouts Kitchen Garden program this term.

We are also preparing for the planting of the BIG pumpkins!

Three areas of the Kitchen Garden have been identified as prime spots for the pumpkins and the soil is being fed with chicken manure and worm juice in preparation.

Did you know that Giant Pumpkins take 145-170 days to grow?!

We’ll be sure to give you some tips in future blogs.

In the meantime, keep sprouting!

Ian