Taming the garden

This is a kind of patio area that used to have a large dog run built on top of it. Thankfully that was gone when Andy and I moved in. It's been a bit of a mess since then as since Andy died, my own future here has been tenuous. I've spent the last few years trying to hold my head together and  there has seemed little point in putting a huge effort into something I may have to leave behind.

 

Last year, before Joe moved in, Brian-next-door helped me to cut down the worst of the nasty knot weed stuff, which was a beast. Since then, Joe has taken an axe to it several times and dug up the main roots. It seems to have been vanquished at last.

 

So even with the future being uncertain, we made a start on tidying it up properly earlier this year. Joe lifted the slabs. 

 At last a nice sized plot was revealed. I began digging it over.

 

And even though there hasn't really been any money for plants or seeds, I have managed to grow a few things and it looks a lot better.

The potatoes at the back should break the earth up (not for nothing are they known as 'pioneer plants'). The courgettes and beans seem happy enough.

As you can seem a lot of rubble has been removed. It will take some work and a lot of manure this winter to turn the earth around. And there is still a patch at the back which I am getting to grips with. It is thick, dry clay mingled with stones and rubbish, so I am doing it bit by bit, inch by inch. 

 

There are tomato plants growing at the side. It all looks a little bare, but at last it looks as if we'll be able to stay here for a while and maybe next year I will be able to plant out the large herb patch that I have secretly dreamed of. 

With everything that has happened, and being in a rather fragile state of mind most of the time, I still find it hard to contemplate a more reassured future. This little corner of the garden is the one part that is slowly taking form, with some herbs and creeping succulents. I look out on it often and try to take hope.

Garden round up

It's been a funny old gardening year. Started late, because of various distractions. Andy took a garden sabbatical (I think he was traumatised from the demise of our polytunnel) so I had to see to it all single handedly, in spare moments. And, at the risk of destroying any illusions that we live in a tranquil, rural paradise - we have been living next door to this;

The bush in the left hand corner is in our garden and the strip inbetween is our neighbour's garden. It began in late spring, and our little old terrace of cottages shuddered and shook as the wrecking ball demolished the ugly 1960's retirement home which had previously stood there. All day, nearly every day (even at weekends) since then, we have lived with the accompanying noise of big diggers, industrial tools, shouting navvies, chainsaws, drills - well, the usual cacophony. So time in the garden has been infrequent and as needs be.

But despite all that, we've had a pretty good year. Picking funny little harvests and wondering how to bung it all together.

Eaten string beans when we wanted. Lots of them.

Custard squash were a triumph: what a great little vegetable they are - and when they are young, can be eaten skin and all. If you store them, then just cut them in half, roast them and scoop them out of their rind bowl.

Potatoes were meagre and very disappointing; we have had barely any rain here all year. I tried to keep them watered with my bucket - no hoses here - but it was a sparse result.

So the garden quietly slips into scruffy dishevelledness. A few things linger, thanks to the unseasonably warm weather, but it is time for a winter rest.

Oh, but tomatoes - the tomatoes excelled! The seriously cold snap must have killed off any blight we had lingering, and they have thrived.

All the plants are now stripped back to stalks and fruit. Despite a night's frost last week, the plants are still strong and healthy.

And I continue to pick ripe tomatoes in November, which is extraordinary.

I also like to leave green tomatoes to gradually ripen indoors - they will last into late November at least, just left to hang.

We are still living next door to a building site, except that now some of the houses have been built - which means that this time next year, we will have new neighbours. The time to move has definitely come.

But at least I still have some last nasturtiums to enjoy.

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.