Keeping the cats out of the veg beds.

Summer is well and truly here now, yipeee. I've been in the garden all day, mainly trimming hedges. I had a borrow of Barry's electric hedge trimmer, so I was able to get through them a lot more quickly than with my hand shears. I have shaved quite a lot off, so hopefully they won't need doing again until the end of the year.

An update on the veggie situation. Everything was off to a slow start and at one point I wondered if I should bother at all. But things are happening now, so I should at least get some food from my garden. This is a washing up bowl with salad leaves grown from seed. They should be ready for picking in a few days time.

Baby sunflowers update. They are growing quite well, and will need repotting soon. I am not going to eat them :o)

I have three raised beds with potatoes planted. They are growing well. All the paraphenalia on the top is to keep the cats off. It will have to be re arranged, and then moved, when the tops need more room.

In here are the broad beans. The bigger plants have the canes for support, those on the other side have a £1 plastic trellis over them, again to keep the cats off. Soon the plants underneath will need more room to grow so the trellis will come off and I will put sticks and any wood I have, in between the plants.

In this bed I scattered radishes, carrots, and parsnip seeds. Not sure what crops I will get from them. Radishes and carrots usually do ok.

This probably looks a bit odd, but this is what I have to do to stop the cats doing their whoopsies amongst my vegetables. In the centre of these two beds are courgette plants. I have to confess I have  cheated with these, I bought three plants for £1 from the allotment stand on Saturday at the fete. When they grow bigger I will remove the trellis, and spread the blue plastic trays out a bit as the leaves need more room.

No I haven't gone completely mad and put curtains up to make the garden look pretty. Old net curtains are ideal to clip onto the four corner uprights, and also clip round the bottom, to keep the cats off the runner beans. I will leave this on the whole time the beans are in there.

I have a few more runner beans and broad beans to go in. The first lot of courgette seeds were a disaster, but some of the second lot have germinated. Goodness knows where I'm going to put them though if they grow to full size. Will find a space somewhere. I might have courgettes coming out of my ears later on in the year.

My veggie beds will provide enough for me, I am not prepared to spend time faffing around trying to grow more. There's enough here for quite a lot of dinners, which will cut down on the shopping trips, even if I do have to eat beans every day for a while. How are your veggies doing? Will you have enough, or too much?
Catch you tomorrow. Toodle pip.