The Accidental Gardener.
Its feeling like the end of summer here.It has been a mixed year, cold wet start, then warm and wet and warm and dry and now cool and wet. The garden has also had the same mixed results, have had to pull the tatties early because of blight, the carrots are wonky..lol.. but really tastey and I have garden peas coming out from every crevasse. The tomatoes Im now bringing indoors from the greenhouse to ripen,
It is the first year for the garden, it was basically a mud hole after the diggers had been in two summers before. uneven and full of stones, heavy acidic clay, and weeds, I didnt have a clue what I was doing and felt like the accidental gardener. I didnt have a clue what would grow and what would be eaten.
We have had a few casulties on the way, like my suicidal cucumbers, the strawberries and the currants... they got eaten by sawfly larve overnight. There was osme lovely bizzy lizzy but they were a favourite food of the slugs and snails. I lost some of the cabbage to clubroot but the two surviving ones are massive! We lost one of the plum trees.. not sure what happened, it will hopefully come back next year.
The biggest surprises were the sweet peas, stock and marigolds which were glorious and seemed to last flowering for an eternity. The rhubarb finally took as well which has produced some lovely stems.
And of course I made my mistakes like planting out too soo, growing on in the green house when I would have been better planting directly into the ground, not putting the tatties or starwberries into planters, the leeks should have been sown directly as seed into a long deep flower container
Im already planning ahead for next year, and making amental note.. over the winter I am moving the berry bushes to another part of the garden to extend the vegetable patch and I am looking for a dwarf pretty tree for the middle of the lower lawn, something like a maple or dwarf flowing cherry.
We have put a hedge round the garden to protect the worst of the Nly winds from biting at the garden in spring, beech grows really well and in our hedge we have found a hazel which is lovely....it has come in from the patch over on the other side of the Obbe, so settled in as a wild species. yummy nuts hopefully.
But its getting close to harvesting the whole crop soon. yummy soups, stews and puddings.
It is the first year for the garden, it was basically a mud hole after the diggers had been in two summers before. uneven and full of stones, heavy acidic clay, and weeds, I didnt have a clue what I was doing and felt like the accidental gardener. I didnt have a clue what would grow and what would be eaten.
We have had a few casulties on the way, like my suicidal cucumbers, the strawberries and the currants... they got eaten by sawfly larve overnight. There was osme lovely bizzy lizzy but they were a favourite food of the slugs and snails. I lost some of the cabbage to clubroot but the two surviving ones are massive! We lost one of the plum trees.. not sure what happened, it will hopefully come back next year.
The biggest surprises were the sweet peas, stock and marigolds which were glorious and seemed to last flowering for an eternity. The rhubarb finally took as well which has produced some lovely stems.
And of course I made my mistakes like planting out too soo, growing on in the green house when I would have been better planting directly into the ground, not putting the tatties or starwberries into planters, the leeks should have been sown directly as seed into a long deep flower container
Im already planning ahead for next year, and making amental note.. over the winter I am moving the berry bushes to another part of the garden to extend the vegetable patch and I am looking for a dwarf pretty tree for the middle of the lower lawn, something like a maple or dwarf flowing cherry.
We have put a hedge round the garden to protect the worst of the Nly winds from biting at the garden in spring, beech grows really well and in our hedge we have found a hazel which is lovely....it has come in from the patch over on the other side of the Obbe, so settled in as a wild species. yummy nuts hopefully.
But its getting close to harvesting the whole crop soon. yummy soups, stews and puddings.
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