Garden resurrection

Long term readers may remember that the heavy snows at Christmas and my neglectfulness caused our lovely polytunnel to implode. It was quietly heartbreaking and we didn't get round to clearing it until April. Andy dismantled it and I tidied up the debris. Our little back garden looked desolate. But I sowed a patch of broad beans, just over there to the left, covered with netting. Because you've got to really, haven't you?

Sowing seeds and sorting out the many winter casualties took some weeks, due to other commitments and lack of motivation; it looked as if the broad beans might be the only veg we harvested this year. This sparse looking snapshot was actually taken in June, not so long ago.

Gradually things got planted and repotted, pruned back and rescued. Our small yearly harvests will be late, but just as welcome. From here, it all looks somewhat weedy and jungly. And it is true, there are things growing where things shouldn't be - apart from pesky weeds, there are tomatoes in with the broad beans, thrown up from seeds dropped by the tomatoes in last years polytunnel harvest. The strawberries take care of themselves and grow everywhere, eternally fighting with the twitch grass and Clover's big ginger bottom which regularly sits on them.

I always forget what thugs squash can be - these *little* patty pans needed tying back, before they swamped the dwarf beans.

So I've forced them up and back with string and poles, to give the beans a chance. And finding another rogue tomato growing between the bean rows!

Tiny patty pan squash, just an inch or so wide.

Then the beans were given a bean frame, and the tomato plant growing amid them was carefully replanted to it's own spot nearby.

These two humongous, lovely lettuces are from the 'cut and come again' mixed salad leaf bed sown in this patch last year. Now they are grown up lettuce and ready to be picked.

This rambling patch of green is a hugger mugger potager of salad, courgettes, more dwarf beans, tomatoes, chard and the odd rogue potato. Despite the close planting, everything is doing well.

Almost time for non-stop courgettes.

Hiding somewhere in there are our first wax beans - just a few more days.

For the first time ever, I resisted the urge to plant a zillion tomato seeds; we bought a few various ones from local table tops and the rest are simply 'volunteers'. 'Gardener's Delight' is living up to it's name and look, oh joyous day, there are actually ripening tomatoes! After years of blight, this is a marvellous thing.

They are placed around a raised bed of peas, which are not doing as well as I'd like, considering they were grown in our own compost, but after a week or so of rain they are coming on.

As I left it far too late to purchase special potato seed stock, I reverted to my childhood method of simply planting old shop spuds which were sprouting. They're doing very well, in trenches and one batch in a sack - my first time at trying this. I'll be interested to see which method has better results.

This is one of my 'Blair Witch' charms, to look after the garden; one hare's skull and three portions of what I think are badger spine bones - could be deer. (If you think that's bad, never look inside my pockets...)

So although it all looks a bit disorganised, this is really a densely packed living larder.

I even have a fairly respectable pot herb garden again, and of course, sweet peas and nasturtiums. Can't do without those.

And finally the broad beans are ready. This is a really great variety, Suprifin, which I'll definitely be planting again. Just in front are three 'volunteer' tomatoes from last year - popped up in the ground and were shown mercy. Variety unknown, but probably Brandywines.

Deep in the bean patch, I am so pleased! Lovely big pods, heavy crops and plants just the right height; nice and tall but not too tall, so no staking required. Perfect.

Picking our first crop the other night, I was very glad that I'd mustered myself to rescue the remnants of the garden. This is why we do it.

It just wouldn't be summer without a few homegrown treats.

It's a jungle out there!

The UK basks in what we like to call a heatwave. Yesterday morning, 7.00 am, before it became unbearable. A fat ginger cat, a vegetable garden going mad and cricket whites...yes, whites. Well, almost. After my washing disaster, a lovely lady from America sent me some Rit colour remover, to see if it would remove the stains. And it pretty much did! We don't get Rit over here, so I am going to have to be very careful not to have any more absent minded moments. They have been deemed wearable, and suprise was expressed that something, for once, did exactly what it said on the box. Thank you so much to the kind hearted soul, who has been responsible for re-juvenating Andy's second kit.

While I wilt in the heat, our little backyard garden has gone crazy with the humidity. Each night it drinks between 20-30 large cans of water. We long ago gave up trying to make neat beds and lines; now we cram as much in as possible, feed it with heaps of homemade compost and let it all get on with it. The peas have done splendidly again, planted in just one small square of earth, with my scatter-gun method (chuck 'em on, cover 'em up, feed 'em and let them grow)

BEFORE

AFTER

Inbetween the patches there are tomatos in a bag, more salad and strawberries in pots, broad beans, butternut squash and the edge of the Potato Army just seen on the right...

...they have romped away. They are a mini-habitat all on their own, with foot-soldiers of frogs living deep in the dark cool under the leaves. When we water, there are happy rustlings and squelches as they anticipate another dusky evening of hunting snails and slugs.

Dark patches in the wall are damp or bee holes, and the shadowy machine
seen against the window inside, is my neglected Adana press.

The batch of spuds nearest to you are commonly known as 'volunteers'. They sprang up of their own accord, from the ones we didn't find last year. Most of them grew in situ, a few we have transplanted from other beds. You aren't supposed to repeat them in the same place, but Mother Nature makes her own rules, and they are the healthiest plants of all.
It's been a good year for volunteers - maybe a few too many. This untidy bed is a huggle muggle of potatoes, properly planted tomatos, woody leeks which have outstayed their welcome, butternut squash, (more) a new bed of peas and various seedlings which have self sprouted from our own compost.

This sunny patch is one of our most productive - it is bravely (and successfully) supporting six different close planted veg; yellow tomatos, cucumbers, acorn squash, potatoes, the peas and mixed salad, again just scattered in a square and left to grow as it will, for 'cut & come again'. Which we do, often.

There are chilli peppers, sweet peppers, more cucumbers, more courgettes, even more tomatos. There are tubs of flowers and herbs, succulents and sweetcorn. Some waiting to be potted on or planted out, when there is space. We bung them in plastic pots, nice old earthenware pots, buckets and broken crocks. We are not, by any stretch of the imagination, a show-garden.

The spinach has become a monster, though it can't compete with Andy's strawberries, growing behind them. For the last few years he has been building up his squadrons; the runners creep everywhere like weeds, and we leave them be. They are now so numerous and vigorous, they crowd the real weeds out.

They grow along the sides of the beds, up the fences, in the cracks between the flagstones, in pots and in old barbeque stoves. Every night when he comes home from work, he goes straight out to inspect the garden in his shirtsleeves, tie and stockinged feet. He cossets his strawbs with the tenderness of a doting mother.

They are not shop-perfect; they are often mishapen, and sometimes a bit slugged or pecked. But they are ours.

We are on the waiting list for an allotment.

Seeding

Our little back garden is small and scruffy. This is Andy in the winter, having a first, exploratory dig. Excuse the washing line, the weeds and the tatty pots; we are a humble household, despite living in the grand Cotswolds. The earth looks good, but is not very nutritious, no matter what we add. If it were really and truly our own, we would transform it; as it is, our slack and greedy landlord should be thankful that when we leave, it will not be waist high in nettles and weeds, as it was when we moved in. Enough sourness. We have fun with our little bits of earth and have learned what we can and can't grow. This year (hopefully our last one here), we are simply growing as much as we can of the things which thrive. NOT root vegetables/onions/brassicas/garlic/sweetcorn. They have been poor performers. Stones grow well though. Today brought more lovely sun and we had packets of seeds whispering enticements from their pretty packets. We went down to our local DIY shop and picked up a large bag of compost. Andy slung it over his shoulder like a captured wife and we headed home. Nice Mrs S. was in her garden and I raced across the road to ask her if she had EGGS? Yes, she did have EGGS, lots, the hens had been squeezing them out. So we picked up a dozen. Mrs S's egg supply has been a bit hit and miss, and she is the only person in the village who sells them. But now she has a handy honesty bag on her doorstep (if you know where to find it) so I only have to walk ten minutes down the road for Good Eggs. Eggs are my favourite food. Ever.

Now we had compost, and an afternoon of quiet seed planting (me) and bed digging (Andy) ahead. First to unearth the last miserable attempts at celeriac. We had harvested enough on Christmas day (tennis and golf ball size) to make very tasty mash for dinner. The last few had managed to grow to more respectable sizes, and were now 'baby' rather than 'miniature'. Andy has a natural, peasant action when it comes to digging and trimming veg, you'd think he'd been doing it all his life.

Christmas 2008

March 2009

There is something so reviving about pottering in the garden. The gentle routine of nestling neat rows of seeds into fresh earth, imagining what riches they will bring forth. The smallest of events becomes an adventure; a sleepy bumble bee crashing around, strange grubs unearthed. We even caught a tiger -

I planted early peas directly into the old celeriac bed. Peas are one of the things we do well, despite my anarchic approach. A couple of years ago I thought that planting them in rows was a waste of space which we could ill afford, and after all - in the wild - seeds self sow themselves willynilly. So I sowed an entire pack in a small square, by hurling them out and loosely covering them. Amazingly it worked brilliantly, so this is how we do it now - the 'scatter gun' technique.

We had three garden helpers, but they decided to catch some rays - and the gingers do love the sun. Mousie stayed under her plastic tub, which keeps the warmth in, like a furry little potato being baked in a pot.

At the end of the day, when the wind was getting a bit picky, I had sown; stripy courgettes and round courgettes, purple beans and white beans, outdoor cucumbers, German Orange strawberry tomatoes and Cerise cherry tomatoes, chillies, 3 types of nasturtiums, Jolly Jester marigolds, peas, dwarf broad beans, spinach, mixed leaf salad and I still haven't finished. There are four types of potatoes chitting in egg boxes, by my much neglected Adana press...

...and we now share the bedroom with two trays of seeds - and two 'cheat' tomato plants we bought, just to be sure we get some tomatoes this year as we lost most of ours to blight last year and the year before. Yes, those are two old sewing machines on the right hand side. I wish I could show you rolling country views from our window, but living in the centre of the village we are hemmed in by (albeit picturesque) houses and cottages. But I've lived in worse places, so I enjoy the views every single day. Roofs and all.

Feeling all windswept, sun kissed and sleepy, I drowsed while Andy cooked bacon, sausages and Mrs S's EGGS, which were big, golden and completely delicious. And despite the crashings from the kitchen, as utensils were hurled into the sink, I didn't even have to wash up. Which was completely the perfect end to a delightfully relaxing day. And much needed; the next couple of weeks are going to be occupied with a melange of geese-y things as I tackle the first lap of another jumbo order.