Terry Walton has a summer fight with aphids!
It’s a quieter month on the plot but I must keep on top of pests
Well hello July! I hope you’re going to be kinder to the gardener than your preceding month of June, which brought us many and varied weather conditions, though most plants ‘weathered’ the storms and put on a lot of growth. The plot is chock full and scarcely a piece of bare earth is in sight.
July is a more relaxed month, with harvesting at its core. The hard work’s behind us and expectations of high summer beckon, with bright blue skies, warm, sunny days and our own high hopes.
There’s still weeding and feeding to do but July is a month to be enjoyed as we while away the hours ‘potching’ among the plants and taking things at a leisurely pace. Your little patch has reached the peak of perfection!
To me this is also ‘hunting’ time, for it isn’t only us who are seeking tasty produce to feed on. The pests are looking for somewhere to house their families and have plenty of food at hand. But I’m not prepared to share the fruits of my labour with these unwanted guest – the aphids are everywhere and love to feed on the tender parts of our plants. This is no more evident than on the tips of my beans and sweet peas.
The method I use to get rid of them is my therapeutic way of spending a warm summer’s evening. I rustle through the plants carrying a paper bag and when I find a colony of these sap-sucking pests, I tap the unsuspecting masses into the paper bag. The element of surprise makes them fall easily and I take them to my pond at the bottom of the plot. There, waiting with mouths ajar, are all my young frogs who have just emerged from the tadpole stage. They feast on this delicious meal and make short work of devouring the lot. It’s frog and
gardener working in perfect harmony!
A first harvest last weekend was my broad beans. They struggled initially to fill the pods during the dry weather but now plump pods are the order of the day. Always squeeze the pod to test there are beans inside before plucking it off! Unfortunately I had no cabbage to go with the broad beans as my early sown ‘Golden Acre’ cabbage fell foul of the cabbage root fly. This is the first time in years that my collaring of cabbage crops has failed. Are these pests getting cleverer?