Lots of news and photos - 24 August 2006

Finally finished digging the first strip and here's the proof!

Made a scarecrow out of CD's as described earlier.

My alfalfa seeds are doing well, they look like clover and are an excellent green manure which can be dug in in the spring. They also stop some of the weeds from taking hold.

Wasn't too sure what I needed to do with my strawberry runners and have loads since my Mum, and Matt and Claire have given me lots of strawberry plants. Visited and joined the grapevine forum
A forum member called Nick the Grief gave me lots of helpful advice and quickly. He said runners with roots can be cut away from main plant and planted in the ground. Runners without roots can be either planted directly into the ground using pots for easy transplanting later or. . .

. . . planted in multi-compost manure. The runners need to be held down about an inch from the new plant and so I used hairpins to do this. Nick also said that the first plant on a runner is the strongest and so cut away most of the second or third plants coming off the runners.


These pots are either side of my veranda which looks lovely. The bricks are there to raise the pots up so that the runners reach!

The next phrase of digging is ready, have moved back the plastic sheeting. This will be my fruit section, posted a question on the grapevine forum about the best layout for fruit.

Claire and Matt also gave me this garlic plant - does anyone know what to do with this to make it grow next year?