Diary of a suburban edible garden, April 2017.

It's all seeds all the time here!  We're going away for a week mid May, so I'm madly trying to get everything I've sown hardened off and planted out before we go.  Once we're back I'll plant a load more I'm sure! 

Joe's still digging out the back of garden bank of soil and rubble.  Does this photo show how big the bank is?  I've included a bamboo cane for scale, but now I come to think about it I can't remember how long the cane was.  I think we'll be able to fit an 8x8 foot shed here now, and before there was a 6x4 one, so lots of space made!

All the soil from the bank has been wheel barrowed to the new raised bed.  The new bed is on the lawn, so I prepared under it by lifting the turf a little with my garden fork, then adding a layer of newspaper, twigs, hay and coir compost, Joe added the soil, and then near the top there are some layers of home made compost, organic peat free compost and more coir.  I worked out that the beds have a capacity of over 300 litres, which is a load of soil!


I've planted the bed up with some lazy housewife beans, burlotti beans, strawberries, sweetcorn, garlic chives, rats tail radishes, pink swiss chard, a geranium and a poached egg plant.  There's loads more to put in!  The two plates are coving ollas, clay pots buried under ground to help with watering. 

All those seedlings will need feeding soon, so I've gathered lots of weeds for making weed tea.  Mines mostly nettles and dandelion, just whack them into a bucket, cover with water, put a lid on (most important, it stinks!), then leave to ferment for 2 or 3 weeks.  You dilute it 1 part tea to 10 parts water when it's ready and plants lurve it.

I nearly bought a rosemary plant from the shops, but I decided to see if I could be thriftier and take a cutting from my existing plant.  I just snipped a growing tip off, plonked it on the windowsill in a little pot of water for 2 weeks and it's rooted!  Yey free plant!

I love the side garden, but it never looks very nice in photos.

I've just ordered three new trees for down here from the Woodland Trust, all native British trees that are good for wildlife.  I've got a Rowan, a Hazel and a Dog Rose.  I think I can fit 2 more apple trees in too!

The apple trees are blossoming for the first time.  Despite the fact that I picked them up for a couple of pounds each in the sales last year.  And that I've pruned them severely following instructions from my Grow a Little Fruit Tree book.

I'm trying a new way of weeding in the side garden too.  My new rule is that I can only remove weeds when I've got something to replace them with.  Otherwise I'm just clearing the weeds, leaving bare soil, and more weeds are coming along to fill in the bare patches!  You can see here I've weeded in front of the apple tree, then planted strawberries, thyme, garlic chives, an auricula, lavender, a pretty shrub with pink flowers and some yellowish creeping stuff.  I'm growing some crimson clover in pots which I'll add in too, so there's a good mix of ground cover, edible stuff and nitrogen fixers that are good for the soil.

Here's the back garden in it's full glory.  Someone (Kezzie) asked how big my garden was a while ago, I've got out the tape measure and it's 15 metres long, 7.5 metres wide (50ft by 24ft) and the bed at the side of the garden is 7 metres by 1.5 metres.  If you'd like another fact about my garden then I can tell you that the main back garden is 0.028 of an acre.  I can also tell you that I still haven't painted the fence!

I'll leave you with these garden friends, wildlife is my chum this month, they're all buzzing and flying at me like I'm a somewhat unwilling Disney character.  The birds give zero effs right now and would probably actually land on top of me while I'm digging, they know that if I'm about I'll probably uncover a worm or 2.  I've already had a wasp in my hair too!  I do like nature but flappy things do make me slightly nervous and sweaty!

These bee flies and butterflies are much calmer friends!

How are your gardens?  Are you being dive-bombed by birds too?

* Facebook * Instagram * Twitter * Bloglovin' *