Gardening

Gardening is a passion of mine so I would like to add my thoughts and tips here for any keen gardeners to use. I have a medium sized garden which I love to tend. I mainly look after some flower beds and a vegetable plot. In the flower bed I am growing Snow Carpet, Picasso Splash, Sea Pink and Magic carpet. I also have just started with Summer Berries and Chuckles (which are lovely). My favourite retailer for all things plant is http://www.suttons.co.uk.

In my vegetable patch I am growing courgettes and runner beans. I also have an apple tree which is laden with fruit in the summer and I have a few strawberry plants which also produces a good quantity of strawberries.

My garden has (or did have) a small lawn (about 3 metres by 5 metres). I like having a lawn in the garden however I do find looking after grass is really quite tiresome. When I could be pinching or pruning, dead heading or staking I find myself having to weed, trim or mow the grass. So I decided to invest in an artificial lawn. I found a local Bristol artificial grass company (see their website here) who came and within a few days had transformed my labour inducing lawn into a labour free patch of fake turf. Marvellous, I wouldn't have it any other way now.

I have had real trouble with slugs in my vegetable patch. Now there are various ways to manage slugs and I found this list here but I found the best way to manage them was the old trick of beer in a jar. Bury a jar full of Beer into the ground. Leave it there and the slugs will be attracted to it. They drop into the Jar, get drunk and drown. Sorry to those of you who feel this is a bit mean to slugs but they do have to be dealt with.

As I come up with new ideas, I'll add them here so check back again soon.