🥰 it’s just the two of us today so we’re playing in the dirt pulling strawberry runners for markets this weekend

Wicked cute, thank you for sharing!

Look at those pollen pants!

In my experience, the ants that nest in our pots tend to favor the species we let have dry periods between waterings - in other words, our driest pots. If we can get the ants out of the picture, the aphids will lose their defenses and your predators can have a field day.

One method we’ve had some success with is submersion in water, using medium to large storage totes depending on the size of the pots. The tunnels flood and sometimes collapse, and you can flush them out.

Something else you could use is diatomaceous earth, which is generally available in garden and hardware stores. Make sure to liberally coat the soil surface and stem, and try to dust the aphids as well. Don’t inhale it. You’ll need to reapply it whenever it gets wet, so I’d recommend bottom watering whatever you can - I have a few small (1m x .3m) rubber boot trays I use for that. Something to note is that the DE is a broad-spectrum tool, so it won’t discriminate between the ants, aphids, or the predatory insects.

600G of strawberries retails for £4.50 (Tesco). If this whole setup cost only a million pounds, a producer would have to grow 133,333,332G worth of strawberries to pay it off, and this assumes nothing breaks (ever) and that there is some way to harvest that many strawberries without paying labor, packaging, licensing, and other costs. I feel like this was a cool tech demo but that’s about it

We’ve grown butternut and pumpkins on trellising with no significant weight issues - one or two huge guys that I cut off to cure elsewhere while the others kept growing, sure. If you’re doing cukes, zukes, or other summer or small squash you should be good to go though.

I’m so glad the exclusion barrier is working for your squashes! Can you train them up some trellising with any sort of ease?

I think that whst I thought were Brussel sprouts are actually cucumber, and what I thought was cucumber is Brussel sprouts so neither is where I wanted them

Oh no …

I am stunned by how crisp those hoverflies in the photo are! And those lovage flowers are spectacular

I mean this as constructively as possible: that’s not a composting toilet and the practice you’ve described raises health risks for you and the people to whom you give food.

I usually prefer non-human animal manures for that sort of thing. Are you using a composting toilet or some other mechanism to reduce pathogenic potential?

That is a good morning!

I adore how consistently I get to learn about unfamiliar plants when you post! Your space sounds so lovely 💕

We’re in USDA 5, and looking at its cold tolerance we still trend lower than the -10C/14F I see listed for it, sometimes for weeks on end.

That’s a good move, if it weren’t for our plant nursery we would be extending the sorrel harvest the same way.

Those passion fruit are awesome, and I wish I could grow them here without needing to bring them inside for winter

I like sage with butternut squash soup, personally. And there’s probably still some time for you to get a harvest of those.

Rad! We’re just starting to hit the kind of temps that tomatoes and basil appreciate, but our sorrel has already bolted.

When you say ornamental, do you mean P. incarnata? Or some other kind?

That’s a bummer =/

Could you fence off the squash in some way? Maybe plant some sacrificial ones elsewhere while you protect the ones that are for you?

That sounds wonderful, and is totally what it’s all about!

As an aside, imgur changed their url handling and my habit of using the i.imgur links to mirror here no longer works. Anyone got a recommendation for a luddite like myself?

Are we ever not showing off elderberries?

Yours is gorgeous!