White ladybird?

I usually plant flowers around the base of the pear trees and the year before last I grew some ladybird poppies. The blurb in the seed catalogue said that once you had grown these poppies that you would never be without as, just like other poppies, they are prolific self seeders. With this in mind I was surprised that not one ladybird poppy grew last year.

It could have been the dry season (what a difference this year is) or it could have been that they were just teasing me but not one ladybird poppy made an appearance.

This year when weeding around the pear trees I noticed leaves that looked very familiar and sure enough this year we have some large clumps of bright red poppies. The clumps grew and produced masses of flower buds.

Can you spot the cluster of aphids that seem to have set up home. Here's a closer look.

The poppies didn't seem to mind and hopefully the aphids were settling down here rather than amongst our fruit and  vegetables.

It's not difficult to guess why they are called ladybird poppies is it?

Maybe it's all the talk about diamond jubilee's but is it only me that thinks the seed head looks like the top of a crown?

Back to the clump of poppies though - did you notice something white in amongst the sea of red? Surprisingly we seem to have a single white poppy!

It's certainly not one that we have ever sown - I must remember to check out the leaves on my next plot visit to see whether it has the same distinctive leaf shape as the ladybirds.

It's mounting defences that takes the time

We managed another afternoon on the plot yesterday so more of our impatient plants managed to be settled into their new homes.

As we planted our brassicas - cabbage, red cabbage and sprouts - the wood pigeons looked on with glee. You could just imagine them planning their menu for the evening meal.

Well they could think again - we weren't going to spend time nurturing plants for them to end up on something else's 'plate'.

It didn't take us very long to plant out as we had an efficient production line going. Martyn released the plants from the modules and spaced them out whilst I followed him with the trowel. The plants were planted deeply and the soil was pressed down well around them as brassicas perform better when planted firmly.

The time consuming bit was then setting up the defences. If the pigeons don't manage to steal our cabbages then you can guarantee that the white butterflies will move in and their caterpillars will make short work of the plants as they eat and eat and eat! The large white butterfly lays clusters of eggs and so cabbages can soon almost disappear under the onslaught of the army of large white butterfly offspring. If you are interested there's a video on my website here showing the feeding machines in action! The white butterflies are already putting in an appearance as one was browsing our poached egg plants as we planted.

We cover our brassicas with butterfly protection netting. This way we protect against both potential attackers.

The netting doesn't provide any sort of protection against slugs though, I'm afraid for that we resort to slug pellets. A controversial choice but the pellets are under netting where no bird or small mammal can gain access and we do sprinkle only the tiniest amount and only until the plants get going.

One other brassica enemy on our plot is club root. Sprouts seem to be the most badly affected by this scourge even when a dressing of lime is applied. To compensate for this, last year we grew club root resistant varieties which seemed to work. Whether this was just a one off or not time will tell. This year, as well as growing club root resistant sprouts, we are growing a variety that came  free in a magazine so we will be able to compare the results.

Now other than a regular feed of seaweed and some weeding it's up to them to do their stuff and provide us with some tasty greens.

PS: If you are interested my May diary is now complete - there may be extra photos as well as a blow by blow account of our May gardening activities here on my website.

PPS: Don't miss the latest competition about garden flowers click here

Pebble garden

I posted recently that I was creating a sort of rockery on the right of the garden pond. It's not really a rockery as it is minus the rocks so I'm naming it The Pebble Garden.

I'm still collecting small plants for this area and spotted one in a recent trawl around garden centres (when we were looking for summerhouse furniture).

It's a houstonia caerulea - Texas Blue. The common name is bluets and I understand that it grows wild in parts of the US. I was attracted to the lovely blue colour of the flowers.

A pebble garden really does have to have pebbles otherwise it is no better than a rock garden without rocks is it?  We have chosen a 'mulch' or 'dressing' called Golden Flint.

All the rain that we have suddenly been having certainly shows off the colours of the pebbles.