Diary of a suburban permaculture -ish garden, February 2020.

Look at this little blossom! 

It's a cherryplum and I hope the weather doesn't go too crazy and blow the blossom away before it gets pollinated!  And look at these crab apples, still holding on, I love the colour of them.

It's been so long since I wrote about my garden.  And that's because my camera's memory card corrupted so I've lost like a years worth of photos.  But I have a new camera and a new memory card and I'm backing everything up like crazy!

I got some pennies for Christmas and I used them to buy this b-e-a-oootiful new trug.  I have lots of bulbs to plant and I still haven't planted them all - woopsy!   I also bought some mini fruit trees from Thompson and Morgan, the kind that stay really small for pots on the patio, the trees are nice but there were grubs in the pots (maybe vine weevils!) so I wouldn't buy these ones.  But I'm looking forward to having 2 new apples, a pear, a plum and a cherry!

I made this cute little project one winters day.  I hope to collect lots more cute little tins to make a little display somewhere. 

My back garden raised beds still have some chard going in them, but not much else.  There's messy bits everywhere that need dealing with, and theres Still that big pile o' dirt at the back of the garden that I'm running out of inspiration for!  My potting table broke too, I need to find a new one. 

My little garden robin is still keeping me company. 

In the front garden raised beds I've been picking kale and chard all winter.  The overwintered onions and garlic are going strong too. 

Can you tell I haven't done any proper gardening since last year??! 

Luckily the flowers don't mind a neglectful gardener and carry on blooming anyway! 

How are your gardens?  Have they survived the winter?  And the storms?  I hope so!

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My homegrown harvest, July 2019.

July's been a month of raspberries.  Sooo many raspberries.  I only have autumn fruiting raspberries, but that doesn't seem to be stopping them fruiting now!

I've had loads of greens too, which I've been shredding, wilting in boiled water, then squeezing into little handfuls to freeze, so I can use it later in the year.

We had our first, one and only cherry, it was delicious, the variety is 'sweetheart'.

My 'discovery' apples started falling off the tree so I picked them all, which was a mistake as they're SUPER sour and nowhere near ripe!  They're on the windowsill, I hope they'll soak up some sun and get a bit sweeter. 

I didn't manage to grow any carrots last year so yey for carrots this year!  The variety is 'berlicum' and they're really nice. 

I've also had loads of strawberries, purple snap peas, potatoes, beets, some baby onions and a little baby garlic.

What have you been growing this month?

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Dairy of a permaculture (ish) garden, June 2019.

I love it when the foxgloves flower, they're soo beautiful!

Our biggest garden-y excitement this month has been that the driveway is almost finished!  Seven 850kg bags of gravel have been spread (we may have bought one too many, but we've come up with  a plan for it!).  Joe's about to put up a new fence, there's a bin store to build and we want a couple of big pots with something pretty in by the front door (any suggestions - we want something hardy and evergreen and it's mostly shady apart from a few hours of sun in the morning).  I have a new waterbutt too, it's 250 litres and filled in one night - it's been really rainy here!  We've also had new guttering and facias so please note how nice and shiny they are because they cost £1700 (our old ones were asbestos...).

I think the gravel will be slightly less white and a bit more more pale grey once the rain's washed the dust off.  Look at this side path too - I think it's sooo nice!

The front garden raised beds are doing really good!  I've already had my first potatoes and there are beans and peas growing in with the potatoes too.  I've got carrots and beets on the way, and I've trimmed all my onions back because they were hitting the top of their protective mesh (the internet said I could trim them back to 4 inches high a couple of times during the growing season, and it would send more energy into making a bigger bulb, so we shall see).  I've had loads of kale, the sweetcorn is up and my tomatoes and peppers have flowers on them!

I've got little apples on my little apple tree! 

I've got broad beans, peas and borlotto beans in my back garden raised beds.  There are some courgettes in the other raised bed and a lot of weeds too (not pictured!).

Here's the garden in full for posterity. 

How's your garden doing?  Every time I plant a new plant a slug eats it and I'm getting fed up of that, and I had to pull up nearly all of my outside tomatoes because of blight, but otherwise I'm enjoying my garden! 

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Diary of a permaculture (ish) garden, May 2019.

This month we got new garden furniture!  It's so lovely to sit out in the garden in comfort and the set is modular so it comes apart and goes back together in lots of different configurations.

In other, actual, gardening news, my front garden raised beds are going good.  The potatoes have all come up and so have broad beans, peas, coriander, borlotto beans, carrots, beets, onion, garlic, kale, cabbage, chard, sweetcorn, peppers and tomatoes.  I love having 4 raised beds instead of a car on my driveway! 

In the back garden my raised beds need some attention, but I've got broad beans and dwarf borlotto beans and lettuce and a crazy cauliflower in one bed, and some onions and bolted chard in the other.

I planted some 'walking onions' a while ago and I guess it's their time to go walking, cos they're growing little onion bulbs on their tops and flopping all over the place trying to plant themselves.

My Hotbin composter seemed pretty full so I emptied it and got some lovely compost to spread on my cottage garden bed.

Speaking of the cottage garden bed I've been pulling up all the many, many, many forget me nots, chopping up some of them and laying them down as a mulch, then putting a layer of Hotbin compost on top.  I've also watered with worm wee from my wormery and sprinkled some poppy seeds and other random seeds that came from cleaning out my seed tin.  I hadn't added compost here for a few years and you could definitely tell, the poor soil was as dry as dust. 

My Aunty Rose (not my biological aunty, but the lovely lady who I lived next door to for 20+ years when I was growing up) died this month, and I inherited (or rescued!) quite a lot of her chipped kitchenware that was heading for the tip.  One of those things was this old colander, which I've lined and filled with sedums.  I did this little metal watering can too, it was left in the garden by the previous homeowners and it leaks, so it's much cuter as a planter.

My apple trees have set some fruit!  Yey!

That's it really.  The garden is looking pretty and I'm feeling pretty tired after doing lots of gardening this month! 

How's your garden doing?

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