Thursday 29 June 2017

Diary of a suburban edible garden, June 2017.

My wish came true and there's a frog in the garden.  Nowhere near the little pond I made though!  I think he was hiding in the long grass and we disturbed him when Joe mowed the lawn.

Diary of a suburban edible garden, June 2017.  By UK permaculture garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #suburbangarden #ediblegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

I was leaving the lawn long this year, but I think I saw a rat so I'm getting rid of any ratty hidey places.  It's a shame because we've had lovely wildlife this year, big beetles, all sorts of bees and wasps and insects, sparrows, and this little frog, and I think they've all been using the long grass to hide in. 

Joe's been giving me a hand this week and the garden's looking a bit neater and nicer. There are a few piles of grass about waiting to go into the compost bin and I still haven't finished painting the fence, but there are definitely less weeds!

Diary of a suburban edible garden, June 2017.  By UK permaculture garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #suburbangarden #ediblegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

Our second raised bed has been placed on the lawn and is waiting to be filled.  I was going to have a raised bed at the front and one at the back of the lawn, but it just didn't feel right.  About a week ago I had a total rethink of how I want to design the garden, drew a new plan and now I'm super excited to get going.  The whole back half of the garden is going to be fruit trees and bushes and shrubs, and the front half will be the raised veg beds and mostly cottage garden style planting with fruit and veg interspersed through.  When we can afford to do the hard landscaping I want to curve the path to the right, where we'll have a studio shed, and plant a tree in the middle of the end of the garden so there's a nice central focal point. 

Anyway, Joe's put the new raised bed in the lawn, and dug a little trench for it so it sits level, as the lawn is really slope-y and bumpy.

Diary of a suburban edible garden, June 2017.  By UK permaculture garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #suburbangarden #ediblegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

As you can see the other raised bed is doing so good!  I've only fertilised it once too and I'm only watering using the ollas and a couple of wine bottle waterers.  I slightly regret planting two courgettes in there because they've got huge, but at least I think I'll have some courgettes this year!

I've never grown borlotti beans before, aren't they beautiful?

Diary of a suburban edible garden, June 2017.  By UK permaculture garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #suburbangarden #ediblegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

I'm growing rat's tail radish this year too and it's a lot bigger and taller than I expected.  It has lots of flowers, and I'm waiting for them to form seed pods, which are the edible part.

Diary of a suburban edible garden, June 2017.  By UK permaculture garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #suburbangarden #ediblegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

In the front garden the raised beds are doing good, but I'm not planting anything new in them because we're going to change up the front garden too. 

Diary of a suburban edible garden, June 2017.  By UK permaculture garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #suburbangarden #ediblegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

We going to change the gravel, put in new round raised beds and a half barrow pond, a wheely bin store with a green roof and these wooden raised beds will move to the other side of the front garden. 

I bought some exciting new plants this month, there are lots of gaps to fill after slugs ate all my summer seedlings!

Diary of a suburban edible garden, June 2017.  By UK permaculture garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #suburbangarden #ediblegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

Other nice plants in the garden this month, this huge fern, pretty calendula, self seeded hypericum, lavender with very yellow nasturtiums behind and lovely sage with slightly pink tips.

Diary of a suburban edible garden, June 2017.  By UK permaculture garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #suburbangarden #ediblegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

Diary of a suburban edible garden, June 2017.  By UK permaculture garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #suburbangarden #ediblegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

Diary of a suburban edible garden, June 2017.  By UK permaculture garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #suburbangarden #ediblegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

Diary of a suburban edible garden, June 2017.  By UK permaculture garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #suburbangarden #ediblegarden #ukpermaculturegarden

Diary of a suburban edible garden, June 2017.  By UK permaculture garden blogger secondhandsusie.blogspot.com #suburbangarden #ediblegarden #ukpermaculturegarden


How's your garden this month? 


 
 

6 comments:

  1. lots of gardeny goodness going on there!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I do love reading about your garden. The idea of round raised beds is brilliant; I think they'll be beautiful.

    My mom is also growing borlotti beans for the first time, and she says they've grown much faster than the rest of her beans. Have they done the same for you?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you :)

      My borlotti beans are growing faster than the other beans I planted actually, I have some lazy housewife beans that haven't even flowered yet! Perhaps borlottis are just a fast variety?

      Delete
  3. Ooh there's lots happening in your garden! We've just become home owners at long last so finally have a garden of our own and have done a bit of work on it already but are now leaving it for a bit to work on the house! I'm really looking forward to redesigning the garden. It's not very big and we're not very green fingered so we won't be growing food but I'll be adding a pond and wildflowers and turning into a wildlife garden!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh yey to home ownership! Happy new home to you! A wildlife garden sounds fantastic! :) x

      Delete

Thanks for visiting!

You can also find me on Twitter @secondhandsusie and Facebook facebook.com/secondhandsusie