New Garden, New Post

Farewell Patio Garden

Last year my gardening fell by the wayside and I've just realised that there isn't a single post on this blog for 2013. That's not without reason though - we bought a house and that rather took over my summer. Nothing new was planted, but on the plus side nothing old was left behind.  With some help from our lovely removal van, and several trips in my Fiesta to move all the dirty, awkward stuff, I successfully moved every last bit of my "garden" to our new home.

A New Garden (before my pots moved in!)

The good news is that my new house has a "real" garden, with grass, and flower beds, and even trees .... It's been 10 years since I moved out of mum & dad's and since leaving home this is the first time I've had my own bit of grass to walk on.

And that's not all - I never expected to get one of these... but I even have some front garden too!

My project for this year is going to be to plant out that front garden - we've discovered that there are some bulbs hiding in the borders but there's no structure to it so my plan is to fill the flowerbeds with some shrubs and perennials to add some continuing interest.

That's not to say that my fruit and veggies will be neglected though. I still have a patio... and pots... and whilst I'm not expanding them this year I'm certainly going to be filling them.

My fruit has come through the winter largely unscathed and I have a a cherry tree, a redcurrant bush, a blackberry bush, some raspberries and some gooseberries, a ton of strawberries and possibly a blueberry (although that one may be beyond rescuing).

I've also planted out some broad beans and I have peas and mangetout on their way.

I was tempted by plug plants this year but I have so many seeds that I decided to try making my own! I have dug out my seed trays and currently have mixed lettuce, radishes, leaf beet, butternut squash, chillis and various herbs growing.

Slugs & Snails are evil

My garden is very sad at the moment.  Before I went on holiday I had nurtured and planted out 16 sturdy mange tout & pea plants and an entire bed of mixed salad plants, all sorts of lovely little green things thriving in my garden.

Then it rained for a solid week while I was on holiday and when I came back nearly everything had been eaten... my entire bed of salad has vanished, all my lovely little rows of baby plants have disappeared without a trace.  My mange tout & peas are just little tiny stems with no leaves at all, withered and dying.

The only explanation I can find is that the slugs and snails had a feast at my expense.  I'm feeling a bit disheartened at the moment because I've lost a couple of months worth of growing in the space of a week :(

I have ordered some Nemaslug from Amazon which promises to provide thousands of little slug eating insects which will clear my beds out for me and stop my next batch of seedlings being eaten.  Once they've had a chance to do their work I will have to set to work replanting.  It's late enough in the year now that I can just sow directly into the beds so hopefully in a few weeks I will have green things again.

Not all is lost though - I had some tomatoes, peppers and aubergines inside and Rob took wonderful care of those in my absence so they are doing just fine.  I also have some leeks which I started later which are still tiny so in a little while they can go out and fill some of my gaps.  My broad beans have been nibbled but I think they'll pull through and nearly all my fruit is fine - the only victim was the rhubarb but it was looking a bit pathetic anyway this year (I think it needs more space!).  On a happy note my potatoes are finally showing their first leaves so I guess they escaped unscathed.

Not the best start to the year though.

Freecycle = Win!

A little while ago I was looking for an old sewing machine and asked after a few on Freecycle without any success so chalked it up as a nice idea and resorted to ebay; I decided to give it another try again this year and thought I'd keep an eye out for any garden bits to green-ify my patios and amazingly after signing back up yesterday I now have a big pile of pots in my garden that a kind Freecycler 'offered' for re-homing!  I plan to plant salad leaves and veggies in the larger ones and use the smaller ones for flowers to brighten the place up, attract the good insects and distract the bad ones!

I resolved to be good and give back as soon as I could and as luck would have it someone 'wanted' some reference books I have and is popping over tonight to collect them!

A beautiful weekend

The weather was so nice yesterday I couldn't bear to stay inside so I must have spent about 5 hours out in the garden, mostly just tidying and sorting... amazing how much time it can take to straighten everything out but I wasn't in any hurry!

I sorted through all my pots of strawberries an amalgamated all the less-full ones into the new strawberry bed at the bottom of the garden; some of the runners I'd potted on hadn't survived the winter frosts so it made sense to free up the pots for other crops this year.  The bed looks a bit patchy at the moment but I'm expecting it to fill out as the younger plants (left) grow more leaves for the new season and catch up with the older ones on the right.

The mange-tout have gone into their planters at the bottom of the garden and I've strung the first strings for them to cling onto - I've staggered my planting slightly this year so there are another 6 plants just coming through from seed indoors which will fill up the gap on the left.

The broad beans are taking advantage of one of my new planters- last year they had the red/orange bags above but didn't really thrive so I'm hoping they'll prefer the slightly more open spacing of the planter.  On the left in the black pot is my new Gooseberry bush which I found at a garden centre near Rob's parents for just a fiver - looking forward to some Gooseberry Crumble.

And I've planted out the first of my lettuces.  I've shielded the baby lettuces with "cloches" to protect them from inclement weather, snails and the neighbourhood cats.

My little Rhubarb is having a rather slow start this year but I'm hoping it will pull through, when it dies down again I think I will try re-potting it (and possibly dividing it depending on size) so that it can have some nice fresh compost for next year.

My Blueberries & Morello Cherry are both coming back beautifully this year so I'm hoping for nice harvests from both.

I also tidied the shed (much more room in there now) and finally, after 3 years put the corner seat back together so we can actually sit on it.

To wrap off a gorgeous day in the garden we fired up the barbecue and lit the garden with candle lanterns for a lovely evening meal.

Brilliant Birthdays - Part 5

We went back to Rob's this weekend to celebrate Mother's Day and I hadn't really twigged that I hadn't seen Angela & Peter & Chris since my birthday so I got a really nice surprise when I was showered with gifts!

Chris gave me this brilliant insulated mug - it's ceramic with a silicone lid so it will keep my tea hot while I'm out in the garden (which will come in very handy 'cos I always forget it and end up drinking it cold at the moment)

Angela & Peter gave me an amazing selection of gardening goodies all packaged up a lovely canvas gardening caddy - our shed developed a leaky roof over the winter, and I'm loath to keep anything that could be damaged by damp in there, so this is going to save me a lot of awkward ferrying trips out to the garden, not to mention keeping my bits and pieces far more organised.

In addition to the caddy itself I got a set of Burgon & Ball hand-tools which have lovely contoured wooden handles; now that I have some larger planters I think these will come in very handy... at this time of year the soil is still very cold so my hands will appreciate passing the digging onto some proper tools!  To keep my fingers safe while I'm gardening I have some nice thin gardening gloves and then for when I get back inside I can wash the dirt off with some olive oil soap, scrub the dirt from under my nails with a handy brush and and revitalise tired hands with soothing lotions.

Finally, we have twine-in-a-tin with a built in cutting blade and anti-tangle design which should keep it safe from a certain pussy cat, a tin mug which should resist even my most clumsy attempts to drop it, a wonderfully scented "Garden Hideaway" Yankee candle and a set of 6 magnetic bookmarks with garden-themed designs!

I can't quite believe I've got up to 5 posts just about birthday presents... I feel very spoilt! I think the most amazing thing about this year's birthday pressies though is that everyone has bought me garden-themed gifts and no one has bought the same thing!

Brilliant Birthdays - Part 4

When I went home to visit for my birthday meal with Nicky Mum & Dad sent me home with some pressies to keep for my birthday.  The incredibly strange shaped "do not break it" parcel revealed my very own a rain gauge so I can tell if I need to haul buckets of water around the garden of whether it's okay to sit back and have a cuppa!

Continuing the garden theme I also got some garden scissors with really big handles so I can use them without having to take my gloves off (and they're really nice and sharp so they cut just above anything!)

Garden Planning

This year I have the following to plant out:

Requiring deep pots:

• Mange-tout (these will go in one of the four large pots and will grow up strings to a central pole) These went into the round bags the broad beans had last year
• Carrot (these have their own building-bag planter)
• Peas  (these will go in the round bags the broad beans had last year) These are getting the green bags and sharing with the potatoes
• Broad Bean (these will get the green bags the Mange-tout had last year) Changed my mind and gave these guys the willow planter so they had better air flow between plants
• Runner Beans (these will get one of the willow planters) might put some of these in with the carrots?
• French Beans (these will get the runner bean planter from last year)

Needing their own space:

• Tomatoes (these will get one of the willow planters)
• Courgette (these will start indoors and then take over from the peas/beans)
• Spaghetti Squash (will also take over from peas/beans)

Living indoors:

• Chilli 
• Aubergine 
• Peppers

These guys would all like a greenhouse to live in, as I don't have one they will inhabit the massive windowsill in my study.

Filling in the gaps:

• Beetroot 
• Cabbage
• Lettuce
• Radishes 
• Tatsoi 
• Pakchoi
• Basil 
• Broccolli 
• Spring Onions 
• Spinach 

These will live in the second raised bed at the bottom of the garden, which I have gridded out for square-foot gardening, and in any empty pots etc, they will also fill in around any slow growing plants so as to maximise garden productivity.  This is definitely something I didn't do well last year - I grew one thing in each place and when it was done the beds stood empty; I want to try and make better use of my space this year and keep the garden full of plants all year.

Flowers

• Aquilegia - will grow in smaller pots for decoration
• Marigold - will grow with the tomatoes
• Nasturtium - will grow in smaller pots for nibbling in salads etc
• Morning Glory - will grow around the runner beans and climbers
• Wild flowers - will grow in smaller pots to encourage bees, butterflies and other garden lovelies

Fruits (already in the garden)

• Raspberries (these will be moving into one of the willow planters)
• Strawberries (sparser pots will be moving into the raised bed at the bottom of the garden)
• Rhubarb (this has it's own grow-bag)
• Morello Cherry (this has one of the four large pots)

Year 3

March is that wonderful time of year when I begin to get out in the garden again and start plotting a years plantings. We made a trip to the garden centre today to pick up some essentials - nothing major, just some more seed compost, some (well rotted and garden ready) manure to freshen up the beds and some tomato seeds which I realised I somehow entirely forgot to buy before.

I've started out my first little seedlings over the last week and now my windowsill has a small collection of seed trays and mini-pots on it with Broad Beans, Mange Tout, Tatsoi, Pak Choi, Peppers & Aubergines germinating on it. I tried to be much more restrained with my plantings than last year (when I planted everything... oops) so we'll see how it goes.

I also spent a few hours in the garden today tidying everything up from it's overwintering. I dug some manure into my beds at the bottom of the garden, skipping the carrot bed as they dislike it, and planted out my first sowing of some of the hardier seeds - spinach, beetroot, radishes, carrots and spring onions have all be planted, again in small quantities!

Brilliant Birthdays - Part Three

Last Saturday Nicky and I had a joint birthday celebration at mum & dads with our respective other halfs and Liz and Nick, and enough Chinese take-out to feed an army.  It was a brilliant evening and Nick gave me a wonderful selection of seeds to plant out in my garden, with a hand-made storage box to keep the spares in, and a selection of useful extras to help me plant and tend them.

It even has little dividers to keep everything organised	The seeds from inside the box
Garden Goodies

Not only that but they also gave me a rather nice cheque to complete my seed selection with and buy some of the bulkier seeds such as peas and beans.  Rather fortunately we were planning to visit RHS Wisley on Sunday to see the butterflies so I stopped off in the shop on the way home and put that money to good use

My additional seed purchases

The butterflies were nice too!

Brilliant Birthdays - Part Two

Carrying on the birthday goodness, Nicky bought me a subscription to Kitchen Garden magazine.  I don't read many magazines but last year mum bought me a subscription to Good Food and I discovered that when the mag is about things I'm interested in (as opposed to celeb gossip etc) I actually quite enjoy reading them.  The first issue was consumed over a cup of tea and was excellent so I'm looking forward to reading the rest and getting some useful tips for my gardening (and some lovely free seeds to plant too :D)

Brilliant Birthdays - Part One

Now that the weather's cheering up again I'm starting to plan what I want to do in the garden this year and this has coincided rather neatly with my birthday! I asked mum & dad for a wormery and, despite thinking I'm a little mad, they bought me this little beauty - a Worm City Wormery

Which came with lots of useful accessories - a book on worm composting, a PH monitor, worm food and a quick-start guide and two more expansion trays (which sit between the tap and the roof and are rotated as the worms process the food waste into compost).  Also included was a sturdy kitchen caddy (which I forgot to photograph) to store food waste in before giving it to the worms.

And most importantly of all, lots of big, fat, wriggly worms!

First impressions are that it's smaller than I expected... but not small - the shot above shows one of the three trays after I emptied and entire bucket of coir into it (plus some worms!) so it holds a surprising amount of stuff.  At the moment it's in the kitchen so that the worms don't get too cold but eventually it will go outside.  I'm keeping them in for now mainly so that they'll get settled and start eating quicker - they slow down in the cold and I want them to get munching and breeding so that I'll have lots and lots of worms to make me compost for the summer.  I was slightly worried they might try to get out but so far not one seems to have made a bid for freedom so it looks like I won't have to rescue too many worms from the kitchen floor!

Just a quick update to show some of the produce that I'm getting from the garden at the moment; we're getting fresh veggies daily at the moment, and it's awesome!

The carrots are not quite traditionally shaped... apparently they forked a little but they are both huge and hugely tasty so I'm not overly bothered :D

The beans are equally massive - two or three of these monsters are more than enough for the two of us to eat for dinner; at the moment they're almost growing faster than we can eat them.

 And these fellows aren't edible but I thought they were quite pretty - for some reason one particular weed on the upper patio was absolutely covered in little stripy caterpillars, so I left it for them to enjoy!

Garden Update

This one's for you mum - I did my very best to take some pictures of the whole garden to give an idea of the layout but it didn't exactly work... hopefully a kind of mini-tour will help you explain to John what it looks like!

Whole Garden (April 11)

(July 11)

This is the best shot of the whole garden I could find... it's not particularly clear and there's a tree in the way but you're going to have to work with me here.  I'm standing on the balcony outside the back of the house - and we can see the top level of the terrace really nicely... yep, that's the slightly manky concrete bit with the tiny agapanthus by the stairs.  Look a little further and you can see the decking where the patio table and the strawberries live.  Peer through the tree on the left and you can just about see the shed sitting on it's paving-slab level and look even further, way down by the back fence where it's all washed out from the sun, and you can see the wood-chipped area where most of the plants live.

If we move down a level and stand on that lovely decking we can actually see a bit more of the garden.  On the left hand side we have the strawberry's (now fruited and putting out runners like there's no tomorrow) and up against the shed my valiant little raspberry canes (please ignore the half-built garden furniture... one day I promise I will reassemble it :s)

The plants around the front of the shed are all being very uninspiring at the moment so I'm not going to show you those; take my word for it that there is a cherry tree (from which all the cherries have now been eaten), two slowly dying sunflowers (which used to be beautiful and now look a bit tatty) and a rhubarb (which is hibernating).

Once we get behind the shed things start to get more interesting; first we come to the hippo bag full of delicious young carrots.  So far I have eaten just a single carrot and it amazed me how 'carrotty' it tasted... Rob failed at photographing my intended shot of triumphant-Sam-wielding-a-beautiful-leafy-carrot so that will have to wait until I want to eat another one.  If you have keen eyes you will also notice an invading tomato plant... I'm not entirely sure how it snuck in there but it seemed mean to uproot it after it had clearly made such an effort to find a nice home.

Moving further to the right we have the runner beans, which are making excellent use of the slightly beaten up TV unit.  I thought I'd killed them but I guess not because they have some beautiful flowers and if you make the picture bigger you can hopefully see the very first beans starting to appear.

If you were to continue around the corner and along the back fence you would currently see some very sorry looking broad beans and mange tout; they produced beautifully in their prime but, alas, they are now rather shrivelled and dead looking.

All is not lost however!  Stepping back a few paces into the middle of the wood-chipped area reveals my favourite bit of the garden at the moment.... my tomato forest :D  It is possibly hard to appreciate the magnificence from a photo but on the left there are no less than 9 beautiful tomato plants, each lovingly reared from seed and now crammed with a truly ridiculous number of tiny green tomatoes.

On the right are my courgettes which are getting back on track nicely after the pesky weather nearly killed them by forgetting it was summer.  I have two which are doing very well and another two which are struggling but will hopefully make it through.

Do you see the tomatoes?

The mighty courgette

And that's about it; I've skipped over a few lone pots here and there but I seem to have forgotten to photograph them and it's dark now!  Instead I will leave you with my latest addition - the slightly pathetic Aubergine.  This pot was left empty after it's courgette succumbed to the cold and it was a bit late to be planting new seeds so I popped to the garden centre to pick up a replacement.  It seems that 'grow your own' season is now over as far as the shops are concerned so there wasn't much choice - this little fellow was about the only thing that looked like it still had some life in it (well, the lettuce too but that's not really a proper plant) so we shall see how it gets on.

Update

The garden is in full swing now; not many updates recently because of the dreaded revision monster but I've had a stash of photos waiting to be posted so here they are:

The cherry tree is the surprise star at the moment;  I was expecting to wait many years before it gave me any fruits but I think at the moment it actually has more cherries than leaves!  They may be cooking cherries but I still haven't been able to resist nibbling a few and whilst they're a little tart they're also totally delicious :D

The strawberries are in full swing at the moment; nearly all ripened now and oh so delicious; so many more fruits than I had last year and the flavour is just divine

It doesn't get much better than this !

 On the healthier side of things I've definitely decided that growing lettuces is much, much easier when you buy baby ones from B&Q!  I haven't had much luck with either sowing direct in the garden or raising seeds inside and transplanting but my £1.69 selection pack from B&Q is thriving and delivering wonderful side-salads for dinner; they're all cut and come again varieties so I can just keep snipping bits off and then they grow me more... perfect!

And finally my tomato forest is rapidly getting denser; I'm beginning to think that I may have been a tad optimistic with my spacings  but on the plus side the tomatoes seem to have developed some really sturdy stems so I'm hoping that they'll be better able to bear the weight of their fruits than last years batch were.

It may not be the prettiest garden on earth but there is definitely something deeply satisfying about looking out over all of this and knowing that I nursed all of these plants from the tiniest little seedlings right up to the big, green monsters that are thriving today (except the weeds... those managed to tend themselves ;p)

It's all about ME!

In Jake's world everything is about him; when I squat down to tend a plant I am clearly realising that the paving is a little cold and hard for his tastes and offering him the opportunity to sit on my "lap" and naturally, when I decided to sink some pots into the soil, so wonderfully close to the edge of the flower bed, I an politely providing him with a choice of watering holes; most silly of me to leave that pesky plant so inconveniently in the way ;p

Also, whilst clearly less awesome than cat I shall take a moment to extol the glory of the mega-radish... almost seems a shame to eat it!

Weekend Photos - New Additions

Above are some baby chilli plants from Angela - these will live inside I think and should make for some lovely spicy dinners

Two new variants of tomato plant - one of these is the massive beefsteak variety :D

And some of my own additions - on the left we have courgettes coming through and on the right my second (far more sensible) sowing of runner beans.