Overflowing Garden

French beans! Tomorrow's addition to the garden - my Dad has grown them from seed and has a few spare. These will have to go in a pot on the decking, let's hope i water them enough!

It's all about the veggies!

Why a Blog? Why now?

I've started this blog as a working diary of the progress of my garden and hopefully my gardening skills. I'm a green geek; that's to say i spend my working hours on a computer and my life (i.e. outside of work) in the garden, or at least outdoors. Considering this, a gardening blog seamed apt.

My garden in a work in progress and my skills are basic. I try my best and draw on the knowledge I gained from growing up with keen gardeners for parents.

Adam the gardener is my gardening Bible - some of you may remember him from the 70's (not that i was even a twinkle in my dad's eye at that time), he had a column in a newspaper that became popular so he wrote a book. This was passed on to me from my father...i say passed on, i really mean lent but i'm hoping he won't ask for it back! It's a week by week guide to the gardening year. It's a good read, although i have noticed that it has aged. The gardening year has shifted slightly, this time of year it's often too cold to do exactly when he suggests, but it's only a couple of weeks out.

I talk about my garden a great deal! To the point that I can see peoples eyes glazing over and have to stop myself! Actually I’m not so bad (I don't think), but I don't have many people to chat to about gardening and I think I’ll start boring those few I do have soon if I don’t find another outlet for my gardening babble!

My Garden

My garden is a small plot, it’s tiered, at the top is my veggie plot, this is about 10ft x 10ft. The next tier down (again 10ft x 10ft) is where I have my shed, and hope to have a green house soon. The rest of that tier is bear earth at the moment; I have plans to turf a bit of it and make a path to both the shed and greenhouse. The final tier is decking, where I have a few pots. I also have a yard area – current dumping ground.

I started out with the thought that nothing was to be in my garden that wasn’t edible. That rules been relaxed some what…for a start I don’t think the weeds are edible and I have stacks of them!

Veggies

Yummy yummy veg! This week I have managed to put pretty much all my veggies into my plot. I have:

-runner beans

-beetroot

-potatoes

-onions

-sprouting broccoli

-celeriac

-cabbage (of an unknown variety!)

-butternut squash

-courgettes

-Something else that I was given – I’ll get back to you on what they are!

Wow, typing them out like that makes them look a lot!

Being tested

My test at the moment is ‘live and let live’. I like this way of thinking. As a child I would happily grab a salt pot and trot into the garden to find the slugs, I’d marvel at the pool of beer my dad would burry to trap them and on a good day I’d even line up the snails I’d collected in a bucket on the road and sit and wait for a car to drive by. Yes – I was horrible!! Now, however, I seam to have changed to the other extreme. I really don’t like killing anything: snails, slugs, even greenfly. I wish I still had a little bit of my childhood ruthlessness in me when it comes to pest, but alas no.

Slugs – these are my current concern. I’m now collecting plastic bottles to cut the ends of to make cloches for the little plants. I do hope I can get enough in time to cover all my plants. Above all I do hope it works!

Another dilemma at the moment is whether I actually have room for the butternut squash. I’m trying to find out whether I can grow them up something – such as a wigwam, or if I will be ok to pinch out bits that are not directly feeding a fruit. Any help on this would be appreciated!!

I think that's enough of me chattering on for one post, i wouldn't want to bore you!