Taken from Lynne’s weekly column ‘Ask Lynne’ for the Western Mail. 30th April 2016
I have three large dogs and they have made a bit of a mess of the lawn as they have used it as a race-track through the winter. I have been waiting for better weather to fix it but we haven’t had any yet! I am going to have to do something soon to reinstate the grass and wondered if you thought grass seed or turf would be best? The strip that need repair is about 20 yards long.
I would recommend re-turfing as opposed to re-seeding at this time of year, or indeed at any time of year as long as it is viable financially and practically. Grass seed is particularly vulnerable to mice and birds and also the ground hasn’t really warmed up yet so the seed would still take a while to germinate and to give you a coverage that would accommodate the dogs. It would mean keeping them off the area for quite a while which is never easy!
Turf on the other hand is more or less instant and the area you are talking about would be ‘do-able’. I suspect their race track is probably about the same width of a roll of turf, which would make it easier too!
We all love home grown peas in our family and have been looking at ways to increase our harvest on the veggie plot but we haven’t dug much of it over yet. We have room for about two small rows. Any miracle ideas to increase the yield?
If you can’t go out, go up! There are some fabulous old fashioned climbing peas available which are often overlooked (no pun intended) and which will reach about 6-8 feet.
Alderman are my favourites, the flavour is deliciously sweet. The peas themselves are large, plump and juicy – and the yield can literally be massive. But the real benefit is the extended cropping period of these peas. From sowing you can expect to pick your first peas in about 2½ months – and picking can continue for a month or more.
The more commercial varieties are designed to be cropped mechanically all at the same time so have a short cropping period.
With taller plants and a longer picking period, your family should be well ap-pea-sed!
I planted out my little pea and bean seedlings last week and we had a hard frost a couple of nights ago. They have all wilted and don’t look too healthy. Is that the end of them or will they recover?
Without seeing them it’s hard to be sure but it is very likely they have copped it! There is an old saying, “ne’er cast a clout ‘til May is out”, which loosely translated means that we can still have hard, damaging frosts until the end of May. It is always so tempting to get the seedlings out in the veggie patch as early as possible in our desire for an earlier crop but nature is very unforgiving about over-enthusiasm. I would get another load of seeds in, in the greenhouse, if I were you and plant those out at the end of May. If the ones that are out now do survive, it’ll be a bonus.
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