Category: Old

West Yorkshire Organic Group on Saturday, 11 February

… and …

Hollybush Conservation Centre on Sunday, 19 February

RSPB’s annual bird count. Everyone can take part.

The horrible little allium leaf miner flies are still active through November, so it is a good idea to protect crops like leeks and autumn planted garlic and onions with fine mesh, as recommended by the RHS.

Several people have pointed out that the itv article was incorrect (thanks!), and we are allowed to water our food crops with a hosepipe:

A hosepipe can be used for watering food crops but not for general flowers and plants. Where you can, we’d encourage you to use a watering can to save on the volume of water which is used through traditional hosepipes. It’s best to water in the morning or evening, as that means the water won’t evaporate quickly in the sunshine.

Yorkshire Water web site.

Watering dry, bare soil requires patience. It can take a long time for the water to soak in, as shown in this clever little video.

A layer of mulch helps prevent evaporation from the soil, and it also helps the soil soak up water more quickly. I’ve seen a great little video showing this, but I can’t find it just now…

There is a very useful article about summer pruning for apples and pears on the RHS website – good advice about when and how to it.

Can you spend 15 minutes between 15 July and 7 August counting butterflies for a UK-wide survey? All the information is on their web site.

The National Allotments Association recommendations on Covid19 were updated in July 2021.

Feed Leeds is running a Sow a Row Xtra project – SowX for short – to give people all over Leeds a start in growing their own food. They are looking for help to produce seedlings and find seeds, pots and other useful stuff from growers around Leeds. Seedlings and plants can be left at Drop-off sites and and people can drop of or collect them from Xchange sites. There is a list of Drop-off and Xchange sites on their interactive map.

Here is a list of local garden centres who deliver around Leeds – useful during lockdown.