Making living salads from the supermarket last longer

Spring

The variety of living lettuce salads you can buy are lovely in both colour and taste. If you trim off the leaves carefully, but not snipping to close to the top of the stem, you can use the plants as a cut and come again plant. It won’t work if you keep them in the little trays that they are packaged in, instead you should plant them out into pots, troughs or your veg garden area. To help them establish and get over the shock of living outside, we have mixed a little of the ecofective® Rootplus within the planting hole. Also, the slugs and snails will be attracted to them but a barrier of the ecofective® Slug Defence granules will keep them safe.

Boosting and Protecting Young Plants

Spring

This month of May has flown by, and with fine weather too. At the end of April everything in the garden was way behind due to the unusually cold spring, but over the past three weeks plants, blossoms and flowers have erupted into a colour palette of greens, pinks, blues and creams. With the danger of frost now past (fingers crossed!) we can plant out bedding plants and vegetable seedlings.

You can see here pansies that are perfect for baskets and tubs. They also suit flower bed edges, near to the path or lawn. As they get established I’m going to add ecofective® Wonder Feed to my watering can and give them a feed once a week to ensure vigorous growth. The bio-stimulants within the feed encourage nutrient uptake and enhance plant development so I’m expecting to see abundant, vibrant flowers. The formula is organic and safe to use around children, pets and beneficial insects too. I’ll keep you posted on how they progress.

I’ve also been busy planting out these little seedlings. These ones look a little straggly, but I’m determined to give them a fighting chance.

At this stage of growth, they are really vulnerable to slug attack, but if I protect them with a barrier of ecofective® Slug Defence granules then they’ll have a much better start. The granules work as a deterrent as the slugs and snails do not like moving over them, thus protecting the plants. Again I’ll keep you posted on how the seedlings get on.