Now that the stinging nettles are growing well in the hedgerows, it is the time to put them to good use. Yesterday I started to make a fantastic plant feed using stinging nettles. Gather up a good carrier bag full of stinging nettles, leaves and stalks. All you have to do is scrunch them up at the bottom of a bucket and weight them down with a brick and fill the bucket with water. Just leave the nettles in a corner of the garden for about 2 weeks - you will certainly be able to smell when it is ready.
This is quite natural and a wonderful, nitrogen rich organic feed for all the garden. The smell comes from the breakdown of the plant matter, resembles cow manure.... and you may get a few flies showing interest. This green / brown liquid is highly concentrated and you dilute it one cupful to a gallon of water. Use it as a feed for plants. This can also be used as a foliar feed. It really works!
Runner Bean Wigwams
Having bit the bullet last week and planted out my tomatoes, I constructed and planted out my runner beanz. I had intended to grow a runner bean 'hedge' this year.. but decided that access to the far side of the hedge would be problematic because it is up against a fence. So now I have 4 wigwams. HOW!...Well, it's quite simple really - six 8ft bamboo canes tied together with string. I have sown 8 different varieties of climbing beans with many different coloured flowers and beans. Runner beans are greedy feeders, and demand lots and lots of organic matter in the soil. Gardening lore has it that you cannot overwater runner beans.
Today I also planted my pumpkin and squash seeds in pots in the greenhouse. I have a wide variety of squashes from the USA - I am thinking of growing some on top of my new compost heap. They should be happy there!
Globe Artichoke
My globe artichokes are getting bigger by the day. The largest one here is the size of an orange already. As previously stated, they get horribly infested by blackfly and are quite inedible. This one is still fairly tight and quite clean. Today I tied it up in a loose bag made from a piece of fleece.I pulled up and composted my 'magic broccoli' today. There were hundreds of purple sprouting flowers and quite a few tall heads of yellow flowers. A fantastic crop this year, I spaced them a little wider apart than I did last year's crop. About 2 feet between plants really worked this year.
I also sowed some spinach and some chard today. The overwintered crop is huge at the moment and bolting madly. Only have a week or so left of this wonderful veggie. I also sowed some dwarf beans 'Royalty' (stolen from Heligan...shhh) and some dwarf beans 'Poinciana' (stolen from George Washington's garden at Mount Vernon...shhhh). What a great way to remember a wonderful holiday?...officer
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