Planting up some salads ...

Hi everyone,

Do you find that this time of the year brings lots of post winter jobs at home?  It has been quite dry in the Shire so weeding is not easy until we have had some decent rain.

I shared my herb trough clean up with you & have now added some additional ones that didn't survive winter. It is looking much more lush & I look forward to using them because I really prefer fresh herbs in cooking. I have also planted some nasturtiums along the front of the troughs because they are lovely in salad too. Can you see the silver platers to the far right? They were one of my jobs too as they are past their best.

I love growing some salad leaves & other bits for summer. I usually just grow a few small trays or get some from our local farm shop but this year I decided to grow some in troughs too.

A trip to the garden centre to get additional herbs & I came away with these two narrow troughs which I thought would be fine. I planted them up with small plants I had bought.

However, I soon realised that these were not quite right & I decided to look for something else. Most garden centres stock large wooden vegetable planters which are unsuitable as they would take up too much space ...

I saw some reasonable height recycled plastic troughs by Elho on the internet which would keep my vegetables elevated & hopefully away from snails & slugs. They seemed like a good solution & would look right along with my other planters ...

The added bonus of this system is that it can have an additional grow house / covered propagator clear cover to protect plants in cooler weather (and perhaps keep out bugs too).

However, a trip to my local hardware shop ended in disappointment as they didn't stock the system. An internet search revealed that a branch 17 miles away had 'limited stock' of these planters so an early visit the next morning ensured I had the last 3 remaining ones. It was worth getting there soon after the 7am opening as I came home with 2 black & 1 green trough - they were the last ones in stock so I had decided to put the green one alongside the green waterbutt & the other 2 under the kitchen windows.

The newly planted vegetables being transferred to the better planters ...

Coloured swiss chard at the back, radish in the centre & various lettuce in the front of the two black ones ...

The green one looks just fine alongside the waterbutt - this unashamedly contains only lettuce & various leaves which I use for salad daily. I am really looking forward to having a good supply right outside the kitchen door. The plants underneath are for some container colour on the patio ...

The advantage of sticking to one colour for all our planters / pots means that they all seem to blend in against the house ... 

 While adding some additional herbs to the side troughs, I realised that our black, red & white currents were still in silver metal pots which no longer looked their best. Time for a quick trip out to get some shorter square black ones I had seen earlier in the week ...

The lower pots are very similar to the herb troughs & it looks neater & more uniform.  I picked up 3 large 55 litre bags of compost which as you well know, weighs 55kg each. After manhandling them in to the 3 new raised vegetable planters & the 3 new tubs on the wall, I was glad as each bag lightened up - heavy work. I mixed in some compost from the small bags which expand & which retain water too ...

Much better to look at & much neater too. The various currents are in bloom with fruit forming  ...

I am hopeful of a good crop of salad things in a few weeks because the planters benefit from a protected, sunny spot against the house. I have ordered their plastic lids which will hopefully mean I don't have to share the spoils of my hard work with slugs & snails ... 

And an update - all 3 lids have arrived via Amazon - yay, I will not be sharing my salad greens with birds or slugs ... 

Hopefully my regular hedgehogs will help keep them under control too ...

What is on your to-do list at home? Do you have a long list of things that need doing?
Thank you for stopping by & taking the time to read & leave a comment.
Dee ~♥~