Garden Disasters

I have just enjoyed 5 days on holiday in France with the family. It was lovely. We went on a few walks, ate lots of French bread and watched the entire first series of All Creatures Great And Small.

A beautiful Breton beach

When we first arrived, however, we were treated to an unpleasant shock. Everything was overgrown and messy; a tree had fallen over at the bottom of the garden, narrowly avoiding my young oak tree; and the veg patch was a disgrace.

Hardly any sweetcorn or sunflowers had survived; and the potatoes, onions, shallots and garlic were overrun with weeds. In fact, the weeds were taller than the onions and shallots, meaning that lots of them had died, either by rotting in the ground or from being too shady. The ones that were alive were either yellow or pathetically small. We did so much weeding in fact that by the end of the holiday, the compost bin wouldn't even close.

There were slugs and snails EVERYWHERE. Literally every leaf we turned up on the rhubarb was playing host to at least five of the devils, and they'd clearly been on the tatties and sunflowers too. Everything was munched to bits.

We started a clear up operation on our first day (squishing slugs in a heavy downpour with a non-waterproof waterproof coat on is not much fun), and finished it on our last. I didn't take a before picture, as it was just too upsetting a sight, but here is an after. We planted all the spare brassicas etc. as well.

I am not a huge organic fanatic (pay more for something that is cheaper to produce than the stuff they spray with NPK? You're having a laugh, surely!!) but I do prefer to not spray with foul eutrophication-inducing pesticides unless absolutely necessary. I have had great success with an organic slug solution called Slug Off, but the situation was so bad that I am afraid that I had to employ the use of little blue Antilimasse pellets. The pictures show what they do to slugs...they sort of melt them...eurgh. Before and after: Antilimasse melts a slug...

Most of the brassicas and all the chillis and runner beans have been planted behind our rabbit-proof rusty wire & willow withy contraption, but I am afraid that the others will just have to hold on for as long as possible.

In the end though, we got the garden looking alright again, and the fallen willow was chopped up and placed on our building bonfire.

However, we arrived back and this morning I discovered -

- APHIDS! ON MY CELERY! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN???

I have done some research and I now know that:

1. Aphids can cause leaves to shrivel, black powdery mould, white dusty stuff around the base of the plant (old insect skins or something...not v pleasant) etc etc...all the symptoms fit.

2. They must be caught early (yeech...I hope I am not too late!)

3. They can hollow out the stems of plants, and attack new growth. Therefore, they can actually kill the infested plants (oh! what a horrid thought!)

4. Some sorts overwinter on woody plants and then move over onto non-woody plants during the summer...(I suppose I shouldn't have planted them in the bed under the woody viburnum)

5. They can be treated in a variety of ways, including rotenone (aka Derris Dust), various insecticides, biological controls such as ladybirds, and by planting garlic and onions near susceptible plants.

So far I have sprinkled Derris Dust on some of the plants and sprayed the rest with an insecticide (my organic ideals go down the pan when faced with disaster, it seems). Tomorrow I may see if I can buy ladybirds in the local garden centre or I might try spraying with a foul garlicky concoction...or I may interplant with chives, as my Grandad's book on companion planting (the source of all knowledge and wisdom) remarks that chives are never attacked by anuthing, and actually moans on about how nobody seems to notice this.

I am so worried though. My little celeries! My little plants! I have nurtured them and tended them, and they are like my babies!!! If anything bad happens to them I don't know what I'll do! Collapse and weep in a corner for the next few months probably. I just hope I succeeded in getting into all the nooks and crannies where the aphids hide...

Oh well. I must not give up hope. And at least I know for next year to interplant with onions and garlic and to keep them away from woody shrubs, and everything else seems to be going OK (except for the broad beans, beetroot and garlic, which were flattened in a deluge last night): the peas are reaching for the sky and my tomatillo is taller than my mother!