It's been AGES since I last had time to blog. To tell the honest truth we've been cheating on the garden with home improvements and have been up to our eyeballs in plaster, paint and self-assembly furniture (an evil invention which can incite the most placid of people to extreme profanity and violence against inanimate objects). We have lived through it though and it's time to turn attention back to our lovely garden.
To make up for the lack of blogging I thought it would be best to sum up the last 5 blog free months and then have a quick look forward to 2014 and all the trials and tribulations it will undoubtably bring us.
Last I blogged, our fabulous greenhouse had been erected and even though it was really late in the season and July is, as you probably know, NOT the ideal time to be starting your greenhouse planting, we stormed ahead and filled it with some veg plants. These plants had been duly purchased from the local garden centres 'end of stock' lines and a bedraggled bunch they were. It was a long shot, but, you know, we didn't do half bad and it certainly gave us a taster of greenhouse gardening which is something that Charlie and I are both completely new to.
We planted some sweet pepper plants, cucumbers, tomatoes and lots of herbs. Alas, it proved too late for the tomatoes and even though the plants grew high, the fruits never really ripened. The cucumbers on the other hand were a great success and we were scoffing those into September. We also got a few lovely peppers and Charlie's favourite 'finissimo' basil (another great find from the Real Seed Company) LOVED the greenhouse and went mad on the top shelf.
The season ended all too quickly though and by October everything had to be cleared out and the greenhouse was cleaned. A very eager minion 5 was employed to help with the dirty work and now our lovely house is ready to go next season. We can't wait!
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| Some green in our house |
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| Not bad for 'end of line' peppers! |
The season ended all too quickly though and by October everything had to be cleared out and the greenhouse was cleaned. A very eager minion 5 was employed to help with the dirty work and now our lovely house is ready to go next season. We can't wait!
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| Pots clean and ready for next year's bounty. |
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| Minion labour!! |
Elsewhere in the garden we had our usual list of successes and disasters. A really hot and lovely summer meant that we had to keep on top of the watering. Minion's were employed but often watered each other more than the plants….
Sadly, we weren't as hot on spotting pests and lost our entire pea crop to pea moths :-(. We did however have a lovely crop of chard…..only trouble was, none of it got eaten as we discovered we actually weren't that keen on chard. The maris piper potatoes were fantastic though. We were cropping them for a good couple of months. They were bright pink straight out of the ground and tasted delicious. More will be planted next year. We tried some bread poppies which produced absolutely beautiful flowers heads and loads of seeds.
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| The bread poppies were a real find. |
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| lost peas :-( |
The patio was looking pretty too and, in addition to my lovely alpines, I managed to sneak in a few pots and ornaments to pretty things up.
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| Roses and lavender, my favourites. |
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| The only snail that could be spotted in our garden this year thanks to our nemaslug success!!! |
In the end 2013 wasn't half bad. We've learnt more lessons, such as: don't plant things you don't eat; keep a keen eye out for pests and buy lots of nemaslug because it's bloody brilliant….and we feel ready to tackle 2014! Happy New Year everyone.
Coming soon……
The Plan 2014
Healing with Herbs (my big project for next season)
Minions on Manoeuvre
What will it take to bribe you both and the very useful minion 5 (and the not so useful but very gorgeous minion 6) to come and sort my new garden once I get settled???
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