A Gardener I Am Not!

Thank you for all the comments on my last post, Little Miss did very well at the competition and came home with a medal, so all was good in this house!

This is a post I wrote a while ago and couldn't publish as the photos were disappearing (I think they still are), it's a little out of date and I'll do another to show garden progress soon, things have moved on obviously. The photos are still disappearing and this time they were purely uploaded from a file on my pc so I'm none the wiser, Google + seems to be saving my pictures automatically so I'm wondering if there's connection??

Anyway this is the post, from about 2-3 weeks ago..... (with a couple of added updates, it may be a bit muddly, apologies in advance!)

I have vaguely mentioned on occasion that I've been gardening, I've been doing lots (of digging mainly) and was particularly inspired this year to plant a few vegetables. There is a lot of inspiration in blogland and CJ at Above the River has inspired me in particular.

In our garden we have several fruit trees which seem to look after themselves, some years we have an abundance of fruit other years none, I've no idea why.

The builder mainly strims, cuts hedges and mows the lawn, the manly stuff which involves "equipment". Mostly I faff about, spend money on plants which, I believe, I weed out and chuck in the bin as soon as they stop flowering, either that or there's a prolific plant thief about these parts!

This weeks hasty pre-match strimming resulted in this

Yes a smashed window, and the biggest pane of glass we actually have in the house!!

You may also note that the door has no handle (it's been on the windowsill for 4 years) and

a polly-fillered hole beneath where the handle should be. There is a matching filled hole on the French doors directly above (our bedroom balcony/death trap door).

 A few years ago we were woken early on several consecutive mornings by "someone"

knocking at the downstairs doors, then , more worryingly, knocking at the upstairs doors.

Everytime we looked there was nothing there, until one morning I came face to face with a woodpecker! Who had carefully drilled two gaping holes in the outside of the doors!

 He's not been back since he saw my early morning face, but the unpainted repair remains......

Back to the gardening......
My dislike of gardening is deep rooted although I'm trying to change that. My childhood was spent pottering around the garden with my beloved Grandad, he spent all his time gardening, building dwarf walls, laying crazy paving (it was around 1970) and generally tending his plants. A highlight was a trip to Percy Thrower's garden when I was small, if I remember correctly he was much admired by Grandad, apparently as we strolled around the garden Percy himself appeared and patted me on the head!

My Mum also fancied herself as a gardener (still does and has a garden landscaped to within an inch of it's life) and spent every weekend at garden centres; this is when I started to hate it.

I would be woken (in my teens, needing to sleep 'til noon!) on Sunday morning at the crack of dawn (with hindsight it was probably 9am).

 Mum would call my full name loudly with an "ey" on the end - I hate, hate, hate that!

There would also be loud background music on the record player - either Dolly Parton or

Tammy Wynette - I'm sure you get the picture!

I would be dragged to the garden centre for hours and the boot of the car would be loaded up with trees, shrubs and plants and off home we would go. As I had no brothers or sisters and only lived with my Mum, Sundays were incredibly boring, and that's what I associate gardening with.

Anyhoo, my childhood is at least 20 years ago...... oh ok maybe a little longer; so I should be able to get over this fear of the garden.

We made attempts to tend little patches when we first moved into this house but as we had so much work to do on the house the garden was eventually left to run wild. On completing the house (until we started phase 2,3 and 4) we hired a digger and pretty much bulldozed everything flat.
 We laid a patio and some steps and The Builder built himself a shed the size of a bungalow.

We also uncovered the well in the garden which had originally supplied all our water.

And it was renovated to this...

 

 

But over the years the weeds have crept back and my attempts at gardening have been a little lame. It's not entirely my fault as for some projects I need a bit of muscle, and he's always at work, or cricket!

I have over the years grown a few things in pots, I often have a tin bath full of mixed lettuce leaves but this year I've branched out. My tin bath now contains beetroot, lettuce and parsnips. I don't know how they'll get on together or if they actually like container growing but they're looking ok at the moment.

 I also branched out with some grow bags containing tomatoes and strawberry plants - go me!

All of the above are now much larger, the photos are about a month old! 

 

Please excuse the surroundings, this area is directly outside our kitchen and some years ago we laid the base for an extension come orangery to be added. It was to enable us to have a much bigger kitchen table and become more of a family room to accommodate our growing family. However the money ran dry yet again (and the builder ran out of steam!) and the base remains but nothing else was ever built. I keep leaving it in the hope that one day it will be completed, unfortunately I suspect it'll be done just after the children leave home and we won't need the space!

 

I do have a few herbs growing in pots because I use them quite a bit.

 

The fruit trees are looking good this year although even though there are buds of fruit

 it doesn't mean to say they'll survive!

The blossom on the apple tree (above) is now gone and the tiny fruits are appearing, Bramley apples, great for a pie or a crumble.

 Loads of plums, for the first time in years

 

 Apricots, again a tree full after a barren 4-5 years

 

 Pears, which will change to downward pointing when they get heavier,

we always have lots of pears

 

And cherries, until something eats them - probably a mouse last year as the tree was netted from birds - we've yet to eat one single cherry from this tree!
 

But my biggest project which I'm determined will not lapse back into a pile of nettles and other weeds is this....



It's a little patch where I have my compost bins and a couple of current bushes and some rhubarb.
It's also the spot where we throw all the garden rubbish and occasionally have a bonfire. Over the years the heap has got bigger and bigger.



I'm fed up with looking at a pile of rubbish and the weeds begin to wrap themselves around the little fruit bushes and drown them.

The digging has commenced, (a few weeks ago now) the pile of rubbish is getting smaller as I dig the bottom of it back into the soil and remove the stones and broken bricks

 (what were they doing on a bonfire?)

I'm going to carry on until I have a nice, dug over, neat square.

Ideally I would like four raised beds, I find it easier with boundaries, as I'm not a natural gardener.

But for now I'll try to keep on top of this bit.

As most gardening needs to be taken care of during the summer months I have a problem in that the Builder is usually working longer days and at cricket every time he has a spare moment.

I do get cross when I find out he's taken the afternoon off to mow the pitch!

 

I have planted a few more seeds of beetroot and some carrots; next on my list is onions and garlic as we eat a fair amount of those; I think I'm probably too late for this year.

 

Update : I am keeping on top of it despite the weather making everything grow faster than I can move! The onions (red and white) are planted but the garlic got forgotten.

 However the bonfire is growing again, but so are my veggies, and I have a little idea in my head about having a tiny greenhouse. My birthday isn't too far away and I may ask for a greenhouse or a hoe, I'll probably get a toaster if previous birthdays are anything to go by!

 

This is another area I've been working hard on, the hedgerow between our garden and the field. It's very brambly in places and full of hedge roots which makes for hard digging. I've tried to build it up in places and cover with bark chippings.

 The half I've done is above, (note the abandoned cricket stumps!)

 and then turn around to see the bit I've yet to do!

 

 It's amazing what you find lost amongst the weeds!

 

 There are some pretty flowers around too, very much by luck not any skill on my part, these pictures are a few weeks old now but we still have some colour in the garden.

 It's hard work this gardening mallarky, especially when you're the only one doing it!

 

Have a good week wherever you are and whatever you're doing.

Jay

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