Diary of a suburban edible garden, October 2017.

There's been some really very lovely sunshiney days this month, but it's definitely feeling more autumnal.

Look at these lovely berries, 

I'm really pleased with the growth of the hedge in the front garden - look it nearly covers that annoying van, and the silver car that keep parking outside my house (even though they have their own drives, grumble grumble).  At least they're not as bad as the blue car that frequently parks over our driveway. Sigh.  These are grown up problems indeed.  I know we don't have a car but we would actually like access to our own drive to, you know, actually walk up to our house!

'Scuse the state of the front garden, we're going to re-gravel it and move things about, but until then I've let it get a bit feral.  Look at all those strawberry runners rooting themselves in the gravel.

I've planted loads of new things in the back garden.  I'm not sure if you can quite make them out, but there's a new tall yellow plant, smoke plant, almond tree and my bin of blackberries in this bit of garden.

  

I thought the bin would match the metal raised beds, and it was also a cheap option to contain the thornless blackberries.  I do not want a repeat of the raspberry situation I've currently got going on - they're sending out runners everywhere!

I put an olla in the bin - I'm not sure if the metal of the bin will mean the soil will get hot and dry out in the summer or if it'll be ok here in the shade of the wall.  I've mulched it with leaves too and added a stepping stone so I can get to it without stomping all over the soil.  On the right of the bin I've planted an angelica and transplanted a self seeded hypericum. 

I'm really happy the late sowing of borlotto beans I did have fruited - I'm just leaving them a little longer to fatten up.

I don't know if I planted this sweetcorn too late for it to do sweetcorns before it gets frosty - fingers crossed!

For some reason I still have strawberries coming.  This is climate change everybody.

I'm in the process of digging up the huge fuchsia down the side of the house.  Every year I cut it back and it comes back bigger and bigger and it's blocking the path.  The roots are proving tricky, but there's lots of space now it's nearly gone and I'm going to plant an apple tree in it's place.

I've planted my new blackcurrant bush at the back of the garden and my hazel trees are lurking at the back there, I'm still trying to decide the perfect position for them.

 

I made a 'water feature' with the bin lid (from my blackberry bin), it's just upturned and buried, filled with stones and water.  I've yet to see any birds use it for a bath like they do my washing up bowl pond, but maybe a toad will visit in spring!  It's not the prettiest thing, but it was free and it brings in another habitat to the garden too.

Here's my little robin friend, he's getting stupidly tame, as soon as I take my root off the spade he's hopping about on the blade!

I just love the colours and the leaves and the berries and the flowers this time of year! 

How's your garden this month? 

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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.

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!

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.

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?

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.

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. 

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!

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.

How's your garden this month? 

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Life lately, Spring 2017.

Celebrating - Joe and I had our 1st wedding anniversary in May.  We had a lovely party with lots of family and friends (kind of a belated wedding reception!) and Joe bought me a this book, I'm not sure what that says about what he thinks of me or our relationship, but I love it anyway!

Holidaying - We had a lovely week long holiday Aberdovey last month, lovely walks on the beach, some sunny days, and an inspirational visit to CAT in Machynlleth.

Listening to - I have a Lush Spa CD (this Beatles one) and I love soaking in a warm bath and chilling out while it's on.  

Auntie-ing - My littlest niece suddenly had this whole new vocabulary - it's all 'that's a bit manky' 'she will be disgusted by it' or 'please pass the sellopape' roud here - she's only two!  Big niece just gets cleverer and cleverer too.  We spend a lot of time checking out the tadpoles in my Mum's garden, looking at wiggly worms.  I'm so lucky I get to spend this time with them, I'm making the most of it before big one goes off to school in September!

Watching - I don't like Amazon, but hypocritically signed up for a free trial of Amazon Prime because I Really needed something delivered next day and didn't want to pay the £8 delivery fee.  So we've been watching Amazon Prime TV this month, I've watched nearly all of Awkward and Joe's been watching American Gods.  I loved the 3rd season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and the new episodes of iZombie too.  And Doctor Who is so good this season, I love Bill so much! 

Gardening - My raised beds are super productive at the moment and they're making me so happy!  I've decided to try to squeeze as many trees into the garden as possible, and started by buying 3 this month!  I've been reading lots about Permaculture and hope to include lots of Permaculture principles in the garden.

Reading - So many gardening books, and lots of easy reads (all I can cope with during a snap general election!), I've been enjoying the Worst Witch series - please can I go and live in a witches school?!

Working - Work is workish.  It's fine.  I'm trying a new thing where I don't talk or think about work at home, and it's working out pretty well.  I came back from my holiday so lovely and calm, and I'm trying to keep hold of that feeling! 

Looking forward to - a summer of being in the garden.

Eating - I've become a regular at my local Novello Lounge (for the vegan breakfast!) - I've been twice this week! 

Guiding - I'm so looking forward to a big district event this month to celebrate 100 years of Guiding in Shropshire (and there'll be a special badge!)

Writing - I've started writing 'morning pages' when I have time in the mornings.  The idea is to just get up and write, stream of consciousness style, ideally 3 pages but I usually only manage 2, and it gets all your creative and stressy feelings out and helps you to work through stuff.  I was sceptical but I've been finding it really helpful.  

Wanting - Labour to win the general election, so bad.  I'm writing this in advance, on Thursday, so I don't know what the outcome will be, but I'm hoping so hard for a Labour government, and if not I'm hoping so hard that we can come together and make it through another 5 years of the Tories.  

Blogging - The most popular posts in this little corner of the internet have been, 

Use a wooden toilet brush (I don't know why, but it's popular!)

Four variations on Jamie Oliver's vegan chocolate brownie recipe.  

How I made my washing up bowl pond.  

What I ate in a day.

My lovely charity shopped plates. 

Hope you've had a happy springy spring!

 

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Garden visit, the allotments and polytunnels at CAT.

Garden visits is a (new) blog series where I visit gardens, then blog about them!

On our holidays we visited the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Machynlleth Wales.  

There are several allotments and polytunnels at CAT, and they gave me serious garden envy.  

Before you enter the Big Polytunnel there are some experimental raised beds to check out.  The round bed demonstrates different mulches and ground covers, from slate and plastic sheeting to oregano, wild strawberries and periwinkle. I love the cute little pond in the middle!

The Big Polytunnel is amazing, I really want a polytunnel but I don't have a big enough garden.  I would totally put one in the front garden, but sadly Joe isn't down with that.  The polytunnel at CAT has beautiful flowers, grapes, figs lots of crops and a pond.  It's lovely to hang out for a while and poke about, it's so big there's lots of room to wander round and it has natural ventilation from the slate beds below, so it's not too sticky and hot.

There are two allotments on site, the smaller of the two being the Whole Home Garden (part of an example of an eco friendly home).

The allotment is surrounded by these espaliered fruit trees and currant bushes. 

There are lots of raised beds, as well as some areas with herbs and trees and flowers.  I think I could fit a little hoop tunnel like the one in this photo, over my front garden raised bed - it's not a polytunnel but it'll do a similar kind of job.

I really love these cobweb plant supports.

The conservatory of the Whole Home really inspired me to make the most of our conservatory.  I won't be growing a grape vine in there (not this year at least!) but I can definitely make room to grow more peppers and to try growing tomatoes in there this year.  I'd like some kind of citrus tree too.

The second allotment is a huge showcase of lots of organic growing methods.  Can I please draw your attention to the size of those leeks! 

The allotment is fenced off by a living willow archway, fence and tunnel!

There are little details everywhere at CAT that show love and care for wildlife.  Piles of sticks are left all over the place for critters to live in, but this is a pretty impressive bug house with a herb planter on top.

Even the walls have insect habitat built in.

If you have a spare bath hanging around you could always turn it into a raised bed!  See the planting in the back bed, it's all good for pollinators and I was excited to see crimson clover because that's something I'm growing this year.

The nice man in the Small Polytunnel (so called by the CAT staff, but it seemed a very large polytunnel to me!)  let me have a wander through as well, although it was roasting hot in there so I didn't linger for much of a chat.  Look at all those little plants waiting to go out, there were so many courgettes and squashes and peppers, and so many tomatoes all the way down the middle.  I told you, serious polytunnel envy.   

I went away from my visit to CAT totally inspired and empowered (and dreaming of winning the lottery and being able to have a much bigger garden!).  There's also a forest garden at CAT, but I'll show you that another time.

For more info on CAT check out their website.

Have you been to CAT?  What did you think?

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