Sunday's worm transplant

We returned well laden from a trip to Lucy’s and Pete’s) (Matt’s sister and her husband) in the Cotswolds. The un-seasonable midsummer weather that didn’t deter us from midsummer gatherings which included:

1. 1kg goosegogs from Lucy and Pete’s garden (I think that Pete is mainly responsible for the garden)
2. 18 eggs from Pete’s mum Lorna
3. 2kg of cherries that I forgotten that we’d bought from a food market at a conservation charity's property 
4. 4 tomato plants (also from Pete’s garden)
5. 1 bag of worm dense compost from Pete’s compost bin

(keep an eye out on Slack Lasagne for updates on items 1, 2 and 3)

Maturing bright lights chard

We also nearly came home with some with rhubarb until I pointed out to Pete that what he thought was rhubarb was actually swiss chard variety rhubarb red. I was slightly embarrassed in pointing this out given Pete’s agricultural credentials but since I am having success with my swiss chard variety bright lights and there would be little space in our courtyard garden for more of this type of crop.

We had purchased a wormery online back in March but as yet had been insufficiently organised to acquire the worms that were needed to power it. The system is that you set up your wormery and then order the worms by mail order once their home is prepared. We saved up peelings etc on a number of occasions over the last few months and never got around to ordering said worms so ended up discarding the waste in the normal way when we couldn’t stand the smell any more.

This weekend I was on a mission since the company we had purchased the wormery from was Cotswold based and I had a plan to collect some worms in person. So I left an answerphone message on Saturday morning with my request. For the rest of Saturday I was very excited every time that my phone (or indeed anyone else’s’ since I have a popular ring tone) rang. But come the afternoon I was so desperate for a nap that I turned it off for an hour. When I awoke I had an answerphone message myself and my dreams of worms were shattered. Apparently the worms are dispatched from Yorkshire.

Fortunately Pete came to the rescue and told us all about how his compost bin was full of worms. I was a bit wary because I know that you’re supposed to use a special type of worm.

A camera shy worm

So I did a quick search of the interweb search for an image of an appropriate worm. I shared this with Pete who assured me that his were the right type of worm. It’s a shame that there’s not some home worm DNA sequencing test to check their pedigree but I was happy to give it a go.

Worm extraction

So on Sunday morning Matt, my husband, helped Pete extract some worm rich compost and package it; we all hoped they would survive the 130 mile trip southwest-wards. Matt and I stopped off for a bit of cheeky department store shopping on the way home so the worms’ welfare was in even more peril.

It was with great anticipation that I unpacked the worms from their sack into the wormery. The first test of the enterprise had been passed as the worms had travelled apparently unscathed. Now all that remains to be seen is whether they are the right sort of worm and start making lots of lovely worm juice for us.

Initiating the wormery

House design makes the
wormery look nice in the garden

The wormery after a feeding

While I was in the garden I harvested our first home grown salad of baby spinach and rocket, to go with our toasted sandwiches. It was a good job that I investigated the rocket as it had become water-logged. It wasn’t until last week when I planted some strawberries that I knew anything about making holes in the lining of hanging baskets. So today I urgently tipped off the water from the rocket basket (this has made me think about growing watercress next year) and pricked a load of holes in it with an extended craft knife (this was the only thing I could find that was pokey enough to get through the hanging basket). Hopefully I have averted potential rocket failure – from this perspective at least – I did have to launch a number of snails over the garden wall and I fear that these may be my greatest challenge.

Sunday's strawberries

I must say that I’m rather pleased with the things I’ve planted in the garden. After the disappointment of losing so many seedlings while we were on holiday it was an uncommon pleasure seeing the mange tout peas and the dwarf beans popping out from their troughs.

And it surely won’t be long now until we’re harvesting rocket and baby spinach leaves from their respective hanging baskets. Three out of the four courgette seeds that I planted straight into a pot germinated and have healthy looking leaves (which leaves me with the dilemma of what to do with two of them as I’ve been informed that you can only have one courgette plant per pot – how do I choose which one to leave alone?). And my mini squashes are going from strength to strength. The tomato plants that my mum kindly brought (although they don’t replace my own deceased seedlings) are maturing a bit in the cold frame. I have been informed that I must resist transplanting them into hanging baskets until their pots are full of roots, so they get a daily inspection.

I had a scare with my chillies last weekend when I thought that in the brief spell of hot weather I had managed to scorch them to death in the mini greenhouse but they seem to have revived.

On a floral note I’ve managed to pick (well, cut with the kitchen scissors) a decent bunch of sweet peas to give to a friend and my Californian poppies are on the brink of flowering. 




None of my newly potted flower plants that I put in the front garden have died or been stolen and there are even some rose buds appearing. On the down side my sunflower hasn’t germinated (obviously not enough sun) and the wildflower seed that I sprinkled over the gravel out the front seems to have been defeated by weeds (unless the wildflower seed was actually weed seed). I’m not totally clear on what the definition of a weed is because some of what my mother disparagingly says are weeds actually look quite pretty.

As a bonus, the Christmas tree that we felt sure was dead seems to have found a new lease of life.

Despite all this relative success (I hope I haven’t spoken too soon) one regret persisted. I had no strawberries plants. My mum had told me a couple of weeks ago when they were visiting that I was too late to do strawberries so I did my best to move on. But their absence in my garden was hammered home yesterday when I saw a neighbour’s hanging basket full of them and the beginnings of some fruit. But fortuitously on the very same day my mum had some good news for me. During a phone call she randomly mentioned that she had read in the paper last week that it wasn’t too late to plant strawberries. I was on a mission now; if I didn’t get these plants today then I would definitely have missed my chance, the next few weekends being full of other things so the garden would not be a priority. My mum didn’t sound that optimistic though: she wasn’t sure that I would be able to source strawberries at the point in the season and even if I did she wasn’t sure they’d be economically viable.

So I planned my afternoon carefully. It would start with a trip to the dump as Matt, my husband, had prepared a car-full of junk from the roof (from previous inhabitants) for me to get rid of. Then I had in mind a route round various local garden centres based on a combination of convenience (it being a Sunday I had limited time before they would shut) and value.

The trip to the dump was, if anything, even more satisfactory than usual. I think the slightly drizzly weather reduced the number of visitors (this is based on anecdotal evidence only, when it’s sunny the dump seems to be rammed) so I had several men in fluorescent jackets assisting me with my disposal. Plus it was more straightforward than usual because everything was designated as “general household” so I didn’t even have to navigate around the various skips.

The first garden centre (or more technically a bit of everything centre) was both the most convenient and, I estimated, the best value. My luck was clearly on the up as available to me were 6 strawberry plants for £3.99. This did seem like good value, although I suppose I can’t really judge this until I’ve tasted the results. The purchase was not straightforward however. There were three different varieties: Honeoye, Elsanta and Pegasus – the description on the labels being remarkably similar. I had no idea which to choose and I knew that my mum was by now uncontactable (she hasn’t totally embraced the concept of the mobile phone). I tried to get some advice from the interweb but couldn’t find anything particularly useful. Lots of websites told me that strawberries are good in hanging baskets; but no websites told which strawberries are particularly good. I ruled out Elsanta as I know this is what you mainly get in shops and wanted to try something different. I wasn’t sure how to pronounce Honeoye, so this left Pegasus. I felt happy with this selection, Pegasus also being the name of a bridge in Normandy that Matt and I had enjoyed a visit to 3 years ago.

It was a good job that I hadn’t planted those tomatoes up after all as the hanging baskets that had been reserved for them would now be deployed for strawberries. I did a bit of hanging basket rearrangement in the garden to make sure that the strawberries would get the sunniest spot possible – hopefully this won’t be too much to the detriment of the rocket and baby spinach – and introduced the strawberry plants to their new home.

When I spoke to my mum this evening she seemed reasonably impressed – most likely at what seems to have been a bit of a strawberry plant bargain and also that I followed some instructions in terms of planting them shallowly. She advised that I give them some tomato feed. What ensued was my first ever plant science lesson:

• phosphorous makes roots
• potassium makes fruits
• nitrogen makes leaves

Apparently tomato feed is rich in potassium. Mum couldn’t explain to me the plant biochemistry that makes this so, but I feel inspired to find out. Watch this space…..