Saturday, August 15, 2009

Vegetable bed with spinach, celosia and marigolds

I just thought, grouping these plants together in a bed, is an approach towards self supporting gardening. The aggregate of strength and weaknesses of each will sum up to a positive benefit. I am not too sure, but so far so good. Spinach has been pulled out from time to time for dinner. Celosia is about to end. But marigolds are still growing, and on this bed batas walkway there is no sign of blooming yet while another cluster at the upper end of vegetable bed is painting lovely orange dots all over.



celosia

spinach

spinach

the three,
celosia, spinach and marigolds

marigolds
three short rows, running diagonally across the bed.


We call the bed,
Batas walkway.

Today I found three snails. One big snail almost as big as my fist was still sniffing at our baby veggies in pots. At around 7.30 am, I would think it was a bit far too late for the night out..... The second one was seen crawling on the dry yard, and the third one which was small, happily perched on top of these marigolds looking for young shoots I think. The day before, I put snail poison pellets at several strategic place and I guessed the survivors went on rampaging for a killing spree. Poor snails, I picked them up, put at the side of our compost heap and stepped on them before I got back into the house, ready to go to office.

It is not easy to share the garden with pests.


16 comments:

  1. Your spinach looks great and I like the idea of planting marigolds along with it. Great colour mixes! Val

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  2. Nice to grow your own vegetables :)

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  3. I have the same problem with slugs! But at least it doesn't seem to be affecting your plants - they look terrific!

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  4. THat's funny - poor snails, smoosh. I feel sorry for them too, they're so innocent looking but they really do a lot of damage, huh?

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  5. When my youngest was little she collected snails in a glass jar and left them in the sunlight! ugh, smelly!!!

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  6. During secondary school, each of us had to bring a snail to school for science study. We conducted experiments on snail and labelled the snail. Bangchik, the snail pellets that you are using. Is it the purple colour ones? Will it harm the birds or the spinach?

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  7. Those plants are nice combination! I am lucky to not have snails. But I have slugs.UGH
    Rosey

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  8. VAL, MARIE, JGH, WENDY, JANET, BELLE, ROSEY.

    When they are in big numbers, left dying, the smell is awful. So sorry to fight with them, poor thing. They can always munch other things but not my marigolds and baby veggies.....

    Poison pellets I am using is pinkish kind. Not too sure if it harm birds. But spinach just grow in a world of their own!

    Cheers,
    ~bangchik

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  9. Pretty pictures of your garden. I never had much luck with spinach, too bad because I love it. We get slugs here, they've left most of our veggies alone this year though.

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  10. simply beautifully captured shots....lovely!

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  11. I learnt snails don't like sharp things. So, scattering egg shells around plants might work. Also when the shells dissolves, it will add nutrient to the soil. Have another exciting weekend! oopss...sorry I don't mean keep killing those snails he he he...

    Btw, next time if I am at Kuantan, I would watch out for those nicely pruned Bottlebrush trees :-)

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  12. A snail almost as big as your fist! Fortunately we aren't plagued by snails. I rarely see them and when I do, one the size of my thumb nail is considered good sized.

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  13. I met a snail in the jungle this morning, looks quite different from what I used to see at the lowland.

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  14. My pak choy didn't have a chance at all. All eaten, so I'm using snail pellets to keep them away.

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  15. your spinach looks wonderful!

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  16. > Catherine
    > Flyingstar
    > Steph
    > Linda
    > Rainnie
    > Keats
    > Ginger

    We do have a fair share with snails and slugs. I am sure they do exist for reasons, some known and some yet unknown . They do keep us on toe, on guard.

    Thanks for sharing here with your comments. So snails don't like sharp things... and snails do differ in looks, between lowland and hills.

    So, lets see some other combination of plants that may bring out the best in color, and other net positive benefits.

    Cheers,
    ~bangchik

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