A perfect weekend - ruined!

I normally like my Bank Holiday weekends. So long as I take the Long Suffering for an hour or so drive to the coast and treat her to some jellied eels, my weekend is my own.

I usually try and use the weekend as my last real big effort in the garden before the summer's gone - to all intents and purposes, summer has had it now and we've another winter to prepare for.

But there's still pleasure to get out of the garden and I was looking forward to a few hours pottering - when I noticed something wasn't quite right.

My lettuces had gone.

Not just the odd leaf on the odd plant - but every single one of the damn things gone.

Eaten by slugs!

Apparently we've been hit with a record number of slugs this year because of all the wet weather we've been having. Well they must have been waiting for me to turn my back - I've had no trouble with them at all until the weekend.

Some bright spark with nothing better to do has counted the slugs this year - and there are 15 billion of the blighters in our gardens this year. But it ain't just the slugs you see that are the problem - they eat twice their body weight every day and lay up to 100 eggs each.

I'm not a fan of slug pellets and I'm no believer in the beer trap either - I can't stand the things, so there's no way I'm going to waste beer on the flippin' things. I favour a couple of tricks to prevent slugs getting at my crops - and I've a couple of real mean killer tricks too! My old dad used to swear that if you surrounded the base of your plants with soot that'll stop them getting at the plant - but with soot a little more difficult to come by I've taken to planting strong smelling plants such as mint and garlic around the place - that spooks them too. Unfortunately I didn't practice what I preach this year and I've paid the consequences.

Mind you, I've got my own back on some of them. My expensive plants have a small ring of copper around the pots or the plant itself - that gives them a nice electric shock; I also sprinkle liberal qualities of All Bran around the place. The slugs love it but it kills them by expanding when they've eaten it!

I'll teach 'em to eat my salad!

What happened then?

I've been away for a week at my sister Enid's place down in Gloucestershire - I thought I'd take advantage of the summer whilst I could. My boss at Rootgrow reckoned I'd done enough to earn two days off - the cheeky so and so!

Anyway, it was a bit of a busman's holiday and I packed my spade and rake and a few sachets of Rootgrow (a staff perk!) and off we set. Now I knew that the place had some water - but my, it was heartbreaking to see the damage caused by the floods that hit the area last month. In addition to the water damage, the recent few days of summer we've had meant some of the places stunk to high heaven.

Normally at this time of year I'd be making sure that all my plants were well watered. I'd also be dead heading, making sure my canes were all supporting what they should be supporting, doing a bit of pruning and so on. In other words, August should be a time for admiring the fruits of your labours. It's a month for eating freshly baked cakes, drinking a bottle of cold beer and catching on some well earned kip.

But not this year. It was almost a military manoeuvre trying to get Enid's blessed garden looking like a garden rather than the aftermath of a shocking winter. Anyway, I think I managed to do a reasonable job - and hopefully the place will be back to its pristine best again next year.

Back home yesterday and in between showers, I just did a bit of pottering - but next weekend is a holiday weekend and I'm planning on a big blitz I can tell you. I'm looking forward to picking the first of my courgettes - they look lovely and tender - and I've another fantastic crop of plums and raspberries which are destined for the pie dish!

Now I don't know about you but I rather like having a nosey at other people's gardens and I'm usually the first in the queue when a new garden is opened up to the public. But I'll tell you one thing - I'd stay clear of this couple's garden. Apparently they like to garden in the altogether.

That's fine - it's a free country. But they also open their gardens for other nudie people to look at. And do you know what? They get 250/300 people turn up - with no clothes on looking round their garden.

What is this world coming to?

Let me tell you, the first bloke that turns up here with no clothes on asking to look round my potato patch gets a hoe where it hurts and a rake where he wishes he hadn't!

One must have standards you know.

Global warming?

I was interested in a report on the radio yesterday.

Apparently daffodils have burst into bloom in a Scottish garden seven months earlier than normal, an event, according to the bloke on the radio, that has left horticultural experts dumbfounded.

Apparently, our rotten summer has fooled the flowers into thinking they had just gone through another winter. But "experts confessed they were baffled".

Baffled?

Let me tell you - it isn't rocket science.

You mess around with good old Mother Nature - and you don't know what you're taking on!

So, if these flippin' governments and scientists would just leave things alone we wouldn't have these strange events happening.

But don't get me on my hobby horse!

Summer - at last!

You just cant beat it can you?

Another month with us but, at last, the flippin' summer has decided to make an appearance. There's nothing like the sun on your back to give you a bit of confidence and the Long Suffering has encouraged me to "spend a bit of time in the garden - whilst you can".

You won't need to ask me twice!

So, here's my little list of jobs for the week.

All the pretty stuff is in full bloom, so I'll be pruning our wisteria and the two apple trees. That'll take me a pleasant couple of hours and I'll work up a thirst for that bottle of cold Spitfire sat waiting for me in the fridge.

Whilst I'm doing that, The Long Suffering usually potters around removing any dead flower heads to make room for new flowers.

Mind you, despite all this wretched rain we've been having, it's important to continue watering the plants and that's usually my last job of an evening - and with the recent weather, I can tell you, I got plenty of the wet stuff! My butts are overflowing if you pardon the expression!

I'll also be doing a spot of remedial work on my tomatoes and will pinch out the tops of the plants - and the runner beans – to increase the yield! Looking at both, we could actually be in for a decent yield - thanks, of course, in no small way, to good old Rootgrow!

Finally, I want to clear a largish patch of my garden to make room for a new enlarged spud patch I want to have in place for next year - and then there's the repair work to the greenhouse and the shed .....

And do you know? I think that little lot will keep me busy this week!

But at least I'll be smiling!