Tuesday 14 July 2015

... cabbage white butterflies and spinach

Hello everybody,

The weather has been vile in this part of the country. It has been hot and humid. Like a lot of other people, I cannot tolerate this kind of heat. Most of the work in the garden has ground to a halt. I can only get out there early before the real heat of the day sets in and then I have to hide out in the house.

I have been putting in a new pathway beside my soft fruit boxes. It will make mowing the weeds that much easier. I have spent the last week clearing the area of the aforementioned weeds before laying the landscape fabric and the stone. I worked under an umbrella the entire time with the sweat pouring in puddles from my face. To add insult to injury, it is now deer fly season and the little monsters are everywhere. I will post some photos when it is finished. Nothing to exciting as really, it is only a pathway.

We are planning to put in some addition raised beds in a little while and I have started some brassicas to replace the ones that SOMETHING ate.

I have now transplanted them into 4" pots and they are sitting in front of our house basking in the sunshine. Here is the thing that I find amazing. The Cabbage White Butterflies have found them anyway, tucked right against the house. And the little beggars have of course laid their eggs and the teeny tiny little caterpillars are munching away on the leaves as you can see.


In reality it is merely cosmetic damage as there are not enough of them to seriously affect the plant. I sat down this morning and checked every single leaf on all the seedlings and picked them all off by hand. If I had planted these out into the garden bed I would have covered the entire bed with row cover until the plants were really well established and thriving. It did not occur to me that they would find them by the house. Lesson learned.

I harvested the last of the spring planted spinach last night. It was just starting to think about going to seed so I caught it just in time and absolutely none of it was wasted.


We had a terrific spinach salad for dinner with mushrooms and a creamy garlic dressing. No more spinach now until we plant out some seed for a fall crop as it is just too hot.


Well that is it for me for the moment. Thanks for visiting. Cheers.






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