April 1st. 2021. Yes on April Fool’s day the Edington and District Gardening Club went ahead with another zoom meeting with our speaker Richard Cripps, a very knowledgeable and no fool when speaking about Basic Veg Growing and Propagation.
12 members zoomed in to learn how things have changed in the gardening world over recent years especially with the reduction in the amount of chemicals that is available to the amateur gardener.
Easter has now past so the time has come to turn over the soil ready for planting, a good source of information is to be found in seed catalogues. When planting your seeds you need a good sunny site and good soil after adding compost or well-rotted manure. It is not necessary to have a large plot, potatoes can be planted in a large container as can runner beans, and then kept on a patio.
Look after your fresh seeds, they need an even temperature to germinate if they develop as healthy plants they will resist disease.
A few tips from Richard could be useful, watch out for cow parsley flowering as that is the time carrot fly is about so earth up your carrots to deter them. Plant chives near your veg to deter fly and pinch out the tops of broad beans before black fly gets to them. Smear Vaseline around the tops of flower pots to put off marauding slugs and snails but do learn to live with them, they are not all bad. Lastly lets encourage children to grow veg. radishes are a good starter and are always successful.
HAPPY GARDENING.