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Which neatly brings me on to pests. Garden pests come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and each of us has our own definition of what is a big turn-off outside. One of our regular experts in The Shed is Frances Pringle, who loves to encourage birds into her garden. They eat slugs and snails and grotty looking insects that devour precious plants, but even Frances has to admit that when the birds take a fancy to her cherries, blueberries or cabbages, then they are indeed a pest. And I've said this before, although I love to see foxes run through the back garden, when they start screeching at 2am, then I'm afraid their cuteness rather exhausts itself. Recently we took The Potting Shed on the road to Haddington, and I was surprised to hear that pheasants are a real problem for some of you. To me they're just gorgeous, but then they don't see my garden as a fast food joint. Rabbits too. I'd love to see a wee fluffy bunny hopping about outside, we just don't get them here (the foxes have eaten them all!), but for those whose gardens are destroyed by them it's no laughing matter. There seems to be limitless ways of getting rid of darn pesky critters, whether they be of feather or fur, and one chap in the audience at Haddington came up with an ingenious solution that involved raisins soaked in whisky! I'm going to let you guess the rest, but most of the invaders of the furred kind are now very much resting in peace with a smile on their face!

But for me, the biggest pest of all is noise. The only sounds in the garden should be the garden itself; birds, bees, grasses gently swaying in the wind, not music played at ear bleeding volume. As much as I love the Arctic Monkeys (or is it just The Monkees I love.. which one is Mickey Dolenz in?) I'd rather not hear them when I'm pottering about outside. I would also like to talk about domestic trampolines and the noise they make. Or rather the noise of the folk who use them, but I fear that if I complain about children laughing I'll be struck by a thunder bolt from above, so I'm not going to risk it. But jings they are loud!

By far, the most destructive pest in the garden is the slug, closely followed by his better dressed cousin the snail. Apparently they have something like twenty seven thousand teeth. I'm not entirely convinced by this as the killers in our garden have much much more than this, and can devour an entire veg plot in a single evening. Anyone whose precious hostas look like a pair of net curtains will tell you of the heartache slugs and snails can bring. This year I've grown all my hostas in pots, with remarkable success I'm delighted to report. I've coupled this with some good 'house-keeping' out there, I try to keep the weeds down, sweep up any leaves so indeed they can run but they can't hide. But before I get too smug, I could weep, at their appetite for my . I dream of spectacular displays of purple, cascading down my dry-staine-dyke. Alas all I have is a scabby stick at the top of the wall and some very satisfied looking molluscs.

But this brings me full circle, and like the tomatoes I'm not going to lose any sleep about it. Gardening should be enjoyable and fun. If something out there starts to stress me out, if it seems I'm fighting a lose battle, then I go with nature not against her. So I can't grow tomatoes, I'll create a fabulous herb garden instead. So my aubrietia is the laughing stock of the neighbourhood, so what, I'll bung in a few deep blue geraniums instead. If you just adapt, just a wee tiny bit, there is always something in the garden which will give you so much more pleasure than pain.

We're back in The Beechgrove Potting Shed on Sunday, so do give us a call..let us know your gardening woes.. until then...

Take care and happy gardening...
Theresa
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