Lilac blossom time is my favourite time. It smells so good. My neighbour says she can smell it in her garden too, and she wants a cutting of it when the time's right.
In the back garden, my raised beds have been topped up with a mix of driveway soil (yep we're still going with that!), hotbin compost and some compost from a big deep planter I'm getting rid of. I've planted potatoes, peas and broad beans in one, and interplanted with spinach and bok choi. My other back garden raised bed is empty for now, but I have some minipops sweetcorn in the greenhouse ready to go in next week. There's swiss chard in both raised beds that's just started to bolt. And you can see in the front one that my walking onions have popped back up and have started to flower.
One of my projects has been rationalising the amount of pots I have round the garden. I've been planting things into the ground and rearranging, I'm pleased with this little arrangement with the owl planter and the big terracotta bowl with ginger and spring onions in it.
My front garden raised beds are doing so good. A couple have been cleared out and are waiting for new plants, and a couple are full, of onions and garlic, and garlic and carrot seedlings and lettuce seedlings. My onions are covered because we get onion moth (they lay their eggs in the leaves and the caterpillar buries itself in the onion and eats it from the inside out!), my cover is a mosquito net for a cot, held up with sticks, and so far it seems to be working ok.
We had a really big job done on the back hedge. It's needed trimming for ages and we finally bit the bullet and had a tree surgeon come and do it. It cost £500!!!!!!!!! And while I'm sad about the loss of birdy habitat and privacy from the houses behind, I am definitely glad of the extra light that it's letting into the garden, and to be rid of the creeping dread that 'something' would have to be done about the hedge - at least it's done now! The winter-y photo below is the before, and the next the after. Just so you know, the tree to the left was a sycamore and was taller than our house. The huge tree on the right is also a sycamore and was what I was dreading our tree turning into.
The hedge looks a bit sparse at the moment, but I've been assured it will grow back pretty quickly in the next few months, and there is new growth on it. I asked for the chipped wood from the hedge-cutting, and there was enough to cover our whole garden, 14 rubble sacks have gone to mums for her garden and we still have this much left, under the blue tarp, in an old tonne gravel bag!
I'm dealing with this corner next. I've already started clearing it out, I need to finish that, put gravel down and then move my shed and greenhouse so they're flat against the brick wall at the back.
Speaking of greenhouses, I've painted mine, black and white because that's the only paint we have at the moment, and I think it looks ok.
I don't feed the birds. We've had rats and mice in the garden and I don't want to encourage them. But the garden is always full of birds, sparrows, robins, blue tits, coal tits, great tits, blackbirds, starlings, pigeons and these goldfinches, who visit to eat dandelion seeds for their lunch.
How's your garden doing?
So good to catch up with progress in your garden.
ReplyDelete£500! Blooming heck, that is a lot.
We have had to stop putting breadcrumbs on the bird table for the birds recnetly as we've also had rats and mice in the garden, but its not because of the bird feeder - its becasue of the neighbour with her chickens and chicken feed. We are still feeding the birds seeds though and are monitoring the problem.,,Good that the birds are still coming to your garden without you even having to try, i am envious of that.
Yes it was a lot, I had to take a deep breath and everything - but he had to do a lot of climbing and there was a lot of dragging logs down the back alleyway (it was easier than accessing the hedge from the garden side), the poor guys were knackered when they'd finished. We can keep on top of it ourselves from now on so hopefully it was a one off cost!
DeleteThere's not much you can do about someone else's chickens is there?! How frustrating, hopefully the rats and mice won't be too much of a bother. I leave lots of seedheads for the birds and have lots of trees they seem to like too :)
Your goldfinch pictures!!!!!!!!! Oh my goodness!!! I am so envious! We have tits who come to our garden but no goldfinches!
ReplyDelete£500 is a lot of money! Hopefully it will encourage healthy new growth rather than being onerous!
I do love to see your garden and what you are growing! It looks so lovely, especially those amazing raised beds!
I love goldfinches so much, this is the first year I've seen them come to eat dandelion seeds though!
DeleteHello Suuuuuusss! Just wanted to let you know I am hosting a Bloggers Art Gallery currently if you wanted to come and have a look!!x
ReplyDeleteYour garden is looking lovely. The money spent on the hedge will be worth it (it is an eye watering amount - yikes), the hedge will now fill out, be a good habitat for birds, and still give some privacy. Isn't it lovely to get all the jobs done slowly, and see your vision emerge? I love it. We've had our ugly concrete patio covered with some lovely patio slabs and now I can start planting shrubs and plants around the edge - something I've been waiting to do for years! I'm so excited to get started!
ReplyDeletexx