As you can see from the following photo, the cat has destroyed my onion patch in the back garden:
I’ve previously blogged about my front garden where I planted the spare onion sets, the cat hasn’t destroyed them so I’m hoping I’ll get some onions from there instead.
So in light of the cat’s destructive powers I’ve decided I needed to protect my leeks from her and of course other animals too. Pigeons have also been shredding my broccoli too, so netting seemed a good plan. Here’s my first attempt:
Some of the netting I used was left in the shed when I got the house and that covered half the patch, the rest was 50p low quality fruit netting 4m x 2m from ASDA. I bought three lots thinking I’d need more, but one was enough. The canes were £1.28 for 5 from Wilkinsons, I needed two lots, and I used a metal rack I had lying around to cover the last 18 inches of gap (my place of entry to the netting on the right side, not visible in the photo).
The potato plants are spreading more horizontally than vertically now:
The ones closet to camera are the earlies, still 50% left to dig up, they are lasting well, but then we had a lot of potatoes given to us just before they were ready.
The broccoli, still looking ok, but I’m worried about bolting after one has (it tasted good though), there’s also been some black fly maybe on it, but just a few that I’ve shaken or washed off, also note the pigeon damage closest to the camera:
Worth mentioning the cat has one use, she loves butterflies, so I don’t have butterfly problems with the broccoli!
Then the leeks, the reason for all this netting:
I’m really happy with the leeks for the moment, I’m hoping the weeding effort and this netting will be worth it.
The Runner Bean plants climbing the fence:
Some of the beans I’m watching:
Any finally my first attempt at round lettuce have been planted in the greenhouse soil:
(pellets down as I’m not taking any chances with mr slug)
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