Last week Landford Garden Centre played host to the Morgan’s Vale and Woodfalls CE VA Primary School and David, Landfords Manager and I gave them a guided tour. The children thoroughly enjoyed themselves and we were inundated with thank-you letters! When they returned to School they had a project to design a poster for us and this is our favorite. We love it!!

Well its full steam ahead in the veggie garden, I’m still giving away strawberries and salad leaves and I’ve found some delicious new salad recipes to try – green salad can get a bit boring. I’ve tried adding a sprinkle of freshly chopped oregano to mixed salad leaves which really pepped them up and for some colour I’m enjoying the petals from the flowers of my nasturtiums which I planted to attract aphids away from the main veg beds. Many garden flower petals are edible and really make a salad look pretty. I like Nasturtiums,

violas (in moderation, they can cause a tummy upset in large quantities) marigolds and calendula and borage flowers. These also look really pretty frozen in your ice cubes, easy to do and very effective when entertaining. Just be sure to check that the flowers you use are safe to eat before you go ahead!

At this time of year it’s easy to assume that our feathered friends have plenty of food about so many people stop feeding them. However with babies about and this year’s insect shortage caused by the long cold winter all is not as good for them as it may seem. In towns birds often get quite dependent on the food that we leave for them too so don’t forget to give them a helping hand and keep feeding them.

Our boys from Badger completed their cycle ride from the centre in Mappleborough Green (Warwickshire) to our West Parley centre in Ferndown (Dorset) over two days this week-end. Powering through in temperatures exceeding thirty degrees they have raised over £1600 for Acorns Children’s Hospice and are already talking about doing it again next year! We would like to thank all the support they were given by staff, suppliers and the very kind Cholderton youth hostel near Stonehenge who were kind enough to give them dinner on Saturday evening and a huge cooked breakfast to set them off again on Sunday morning.

The garden is doing really well at the moment – My strawberries are delicious and I have so many salad leaves I’m giving them away to anyone that will have them!

The sweet peas I bought from our nursery are flowering away now too – I bought a pot of a mix called ‘The Blues’ and they are beautiful. The way to keep them going is to keep them well fed and to keep picking them – Once they are allowed to set seed they’ll stop. Our flat smells wonderful with vases of them around.

I’m very pleased to be cropping a decent amount of vegetables from the garden at last. My spinach and cut and come again salad leaves have gone beserk so I shouldn’t need to buy any for quite some time now.

My beans are showing real promise, tying in the new growth to the supports has become an almost daily job now and they are quite the envy of my Dad whose beans are struggling this year. His aren’t ideally placed to make the most of the sun all day and he didn’t put as much time into preparing the soil as I did which goes to show it’s worth the effort.

I’m also reaping the rewards of putting in the same effort with preparation for my strawberries. Last year, in their first year, I removed any flowers to stop them producing fruit so they could put their energy into growing into strong healthy plants – This year they are laden with fruit which I can’t wait try!

Now our lawn is looking thicker we’ve noticed a few weeds starting to grow so its time for a summer feed and weed where we’re a bit late starting our lawn care programme. The granular types such as Evergreen complete are really easy to use, just scatter on and let the rain we’ve been getting over the last week do the watering in for you! If you’ve already done your feed and weeding the cut and feed will give your grass an extra boost and help it recover from any damage done over the past year.

I finally succumbed to temptation last week and bought myself a plant I’ve been coveting for ages – an Astelia. These sought after plants are shaped like the New Zealand flaxes and also come from the same area, but the strappy grass-like leaves are a beautiful spring green colour with a metallic silver lustre. I’ve planted it in a pot and placed it in pride of place on my decking where I can see it from the kitchen and it will get the semi-shaded conditions it will thrive in. It looks great with my Maple and ferns.

Its fathers day the week-end after next – Don’t forget to get your Dad a card & a little something. If you’re stuck for ideas we have plenty of Dad-ware (giftware for dads) & if hes a planty person we have some lovely unusual things in at the moment, pop in & see one of us for some ideas!

We had another busy day in the garden this weekend. A couple of weeks ago my husband noticed some bare patches in the lawn so we thought it an ideal opportunity to try out some patch magic lawn repair. This week after mowing we definitely noticed the difference; the bare patches are full of new grass & are hardly noticeable now.

I spent some time cropping my first radishes & sowing some more along with some turnips, leeks & basil & thinned out the lettuce seedlings that have finally made an appearance. The ready sown salad leaf & spinach seedlings I bought are romping away, I should be able to start picking some leaves next week... Yum!

The rest of the garden is coming on too, my dahlias are finally making an appearance & the perennials I put in a few months back are really coming on. I particularly like the geranium ‘Brookside’. It’s a good doer, scrambling around & producing the most vivid blue flowers, once it’s finished its first flush I’ll cut it back & it’ll bloom again within a few weeks.



http://www.golden-acres-nursery.co.uk/GardenEssentials.html





 

 

Over the past year we have been putting together a ‘Garden Essentials’ range of staples that most gardeners will use through the year. These products must be well known and trusted brands that we can offer at really low prices meaning that a good garden needn’t cost the earth. The latest addition to this range we have just bought in is Murphy multipurpose compost. Also in the range we have – Tomorite and Miracle-gro feeds, Slug clear slug pellets, Levington gro-bags, large packs of marigolds and petunias, and 10kg packs of BBQ charcoal.