Shoestring Garden: Parcels Of Goodness

Yet again I have had another parcel from the very excellent chaps at Victoriana Nursery's in trade for some more illustrations. I love getting these, although I know what will be in it as I choose it all, its still so exciting!!

It never ceases to amaze me how much they squeeze in to a relatively small box!

In my continuing war against the mercilessly ravenous snail population I will be giving this a whirl...

It seems to work by slightly altering the chemistry of the soil, meaning that slugs simple relocate else where (my neighbours on either side will be thrilled!) so you don't kill them or run the risk of accidentally poisoning anything else, excellent! I'm going to try it on the strawberry's which I had a devil of a time with last year, I'll let you know how I get on.

Also in this months box of tricks was a small trough of Feverfew, a natural remedy for sufferers of migraines or hay fever. Rich gets quite persistent hay fever in the summer so we're going to try it on him (not that he should be regarded as a guinea pig or anything...) it does apparently have rather a strong flavour, so i think we'll try it as a green leaf tea with honey and see if he spits it across the room or not.

I had also asked for another 30 onion plants, I have officially given up on the seeds! I'm sorry but gowning onions from seeds is bloody hard and I think best left to the professionals (I bough to Stephen and Serena who somehow manage this every year?!) I think out of the 50 seeds i planted 6 germinated, this is however a combination of snails, Stella sitting on one tray for a whole day until I discovered her and my own stumbling incompetence with seedlings! Sorry but its plants or sets from now on.

Richard had requested some chilli peppers this year, we grew some last year and he loved picking and eating them fresh from the plant. I'm a complete wimp when it comes to spicy hot flavours, as I like all my taste buds to work on a regular basis but Rich loves crying happily over a good curry so he now has 2 Jalapeno's growing in the greenhouse.

When i was having a look over the Victoriana website I came across these Tomatoes called Tigerella's, they just looked some pretty as they are yellow and red stripped, I thought they would be worth grown just to see what they looked like.

I also fancied some flowers so we got 10 of these Opium Poppies, these are the most lovey shade of pale dusky pink, I really hope they flower this year! incidentally this happens to be a very similar shade to my wedding dress!