Hi there fellow Sunny people. Thought I would try out this technology and try to give a wee progress report on my attempts at nurturing the Russian Giants...
Knowing the delights and strengths of Caithness breezes and the lack of shelter here, especially in the upright direction, I was very conservative in my sowing and planted only 4 Russian Giants way back in April. I also thought that to keep them company I would try 4 Dwarf Sunflowers.
I let them all do their thing in the coldframe and eventually on the same day as the Swallows arrived back the first 2 Giants showed their first leaves. Over the next fortnight the other 2 appeared and also one Dwarf.
They all seemed to be growing quite healthily and happily until an unidentified enemy attacked! One mini-Giant had been uprooted and hacked into bits, with the soil all disrupted. The "bearded one" suggested it may be a rogue mouse to blame. I promptly moved them all to a different coldframe so the unseen enemy didn't have a sitting target and the srongest Giant was potted-up. (I also noted that the Dwarfs all had evidence of soil disruption too, perhaps not germinated because they've been knicked?)
So, now I'm in the positon of having 3 Giants and the last-standing Dwarf all potted up. The sun has shone 4 days in a row (and the sun is showing signs of burning through the haar to make it 5), and we're all happy sunny things here.
Shell Scuppers Sunflower Seed Snatcher!!
ReplyDeleteSavaged seedings swiftly saved by Shell and the bearded one..... sorry i ran oot of s's....
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of sounding like i am obsessed with the slug problem, here's a link to some slug beating tips- pretty much what we know already i guess, although she does say wood ash is a good barrier too, so i'll try that out sometime too....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/digin/2009/06/gardeners-enemy-number-1-slugs.shtml
I have tried the beer trap method recently too with the shockng results of millions of beer soaked slimy looking nasties floating in the drink. I never imagined it could be so effective! While i may be haunted by a multitude of sad slug ghosties, all sunflowers and assorted plants are cheering me on, so i heartily recomend the beer... I don't know if the beer works on mice tho Shell...
Rest in drunken peace sad slimy slug ghosties!!
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