I have finally got round to putting the sketch of the raised veg beds on the computer - we roughed it out when I sowed but it has stayed on a scrap of paper since then!

I don't use labels so this is the main method of recording what I have sown where, along with keeping the seed packets so I can see how the veg do compared to the recommendations.

The raised beds were rather thrown up using reclaimed timber from the shed I demolished in the garden and from shelves removed in the house. I hadn't intended to do much with the garden this year but then I wouldn't be keeping this blog if I hadn't.

The soil here is good, well draining and quite light. The garden hasn't had much cultivation so the soil is not stressed or tired and since its been left alone the microbes should be in good volumes. I tried to do the minimum of digging as I set the beds up, using turfs that were unwanted upside down in the bottom - bit of a risk because it will take a while for the roots to breakdown but the rotting grass should help with feeding. Then I added spare topsoil from elsewhere in the garden (cutting the lawn into a circle and digging out to start the pond gave me some spare) as well as what compost I have available. For next year it will need a good feed over the winter and a good compost mulch but there should be enough nutrition for most of this year's plants and I can supplement with organic feeds.

Of course it will also form the basis for remembering rotations in subsequent years.

Each bed is approximately 1m square. I have looked for varieties that either crop quickly or that are compact in habit. SO the broad beans are EXPRESS and will be ready to pick over this next week. We will probably get enough for two meals. The carrots are a small root variety - I am not keen on carrots but they are good for us. I have started taking the odd part grown thinning and they are tasty but seem very slow this year, although they look healthy. The cabbages are looking good - if anything slightly leggy (possibly from being under fleece for longer than usual - wanted to keep the beds warm enough in these northern climes!) but touch wood no sign of c*ter**ll**s so far.

The sweetcorn is the mini cob type - we prefer these and there isn't room to grow a block of larger varieties. I have split this into two blocks with dwarf french beans in between (sort of three sisters bed). The courgettes were slow to germinate and don't seem to be growing huge, but they are full of buds so hopefully they are just about to get going. I have left two in the veg bed and I have two I can plant into a border.

I started tomatoes and lettuces under glass and the lettuces transplanted a few weeks ago (under mini plastic bottle cloches initially) have done well and are starting to hearten up. I have had a couple already and they are fresh and lettucey. The tomatoes are very slow to get going but I have used the bottle cloches for them as well and they do seem to be progressing constantly so fingers crossed.

Sweet Peas

I love sweet peas and I needed something that would quickly scramble up the new trellis fence on our eastern boundary (that makes us sound grand doesn't it - like we have a huge garden!).

I sowed the seeds in a window propagator early in the spring in our spare room. They germinated really well. Before it was fit to plant them out they had got a bit leggy and I wasn't sure they would make it.

Once planted out they were a little slow getting going but they have survived torrential rain and strong gales and all of a sudden this week they had buds and then flowers. This is the first picking, along with some of the variegated lamium and some vetch which as just grown. I have picked about 10 stems each morning this week. I have subsequently added the poppy seed heads I have taken off the field poppies which have popped up everywhere.

This first vase is just about done after 6 days, but there are plenty more to come and if I don't pick them the plants will stop flowering - best of both worlds?

I planted up some window boxes for the front too - I bought plug plants at the supermarket, including upright and trailing fuschias; geraniums; lobelia and violas. I added a sweet pea and a nasturtium (sown by me) to each to give height at one side and drop at the other. The violas have been so prolific it looked like they were going to take over, but through careful dead heading and removing a few to some new hanging baskets I have got a balance. The lobelia is coming into its own, the fuschias are covered in bud and the nasturtium (one died) is in full flower. The sweet peas are just starting to flower too and the geraniums are growing so should get flower from them soon. The window boxes are brilliant - they were from Lidl and they have an inbuilt reservoir so drainage and watering are less of an issue. The window boxes are out at the front and I will have to pop across the road sometime and take photos.

Weather!!

Two days of horrible weather over the last weekend and high easterly winds yesterday left the veggie patch looking a little the worse for wear.

The potatoes (in bags) look a bit battered but no lasting damage.

Fingers crossed for the broad beans - they were doing really well and have small pods forming about halfway up the plant already, with plenty of flowers at the top. Unfortunately the wind normally blows from the West here - they are sheltered from this - so the Easterly gale has nearly blown them flat. Last night was a case of prop them up as best as possible and fingers crossed that the stems are not damaged and they will recover.

All the other veggies are under fleece (caterpillar control) and seem okay.

Finally got to cut the grass after two days of constant rain - it really needed doing by Saturday so it was like mowing a meadow yesterday. One girl went to mow, went to mow a meadow, One girl and her dog ...

Joy of gardening. The weather is much improved today - we might even get to use our new hammock next weekend - fingers crossed

This is the same border now, two months later.

I thought today that I should start to list the seeds/plants actually grown/planted using their formal names: (I am going to create a photo album for scans of growing instructions)


Apples - Granny Smith & Cox's Orange Pippin
Cherry - Stella

Sweet Pea - Singing the Blues (growing strongly, sown indoors and transplanted)
Nasturtium - Empress of India (sown indoors and transplanted - just starting to flower this week)

Passion Flower - Passiflora Caerluea - (Sown indoors and very slow to germinate {so they ended up in a second sowing of basil!!} transplanted out end of May and growing well. No flowers expected this first year) I also bought in some plants, which seem to be establishing nicely.

Clematis - Radar Love (sown from out of date seeds and growing strongly outside 7 germinated and three gifted - these are like the wild clematis and has simple droopy yellow flowers followed by an old man's beard tassel)

Clematis - bought in plants (TBC)

Veggies to follow in separate post.

This was the existing border in the garden. Okay the block wall is ugly, but it is practical. It is in reasonable good condition so I am adding trellis to the top and then it will all get a coat of paint (a dark lavender grey which will show off the foliage but settle into the background).

The border is full of purple bugle, I don't mind this spreading everywhere for now it is great ground cover and as long as I clear it away from the base of new shrubs whilst they get established eventually it will make a lovely ground cover without needing to mulch.

There is also a lovely variegated lamium, doesn't spread as much and is a little taller than the bugle, and an alysum (white on blue green foliage - lovely) which forms large cushions. All of these are easily pulled up if they start to invade.

We inherited a couple of ground cover roses in pots which I have added into the border as well as some alliums I brought in pots. I bought some primula denticulata, carex, carex bronze, several other grasses and a selection of small shrubs (hebe, euonymous, etc) and some climbers (clematis, passion flower) and was given a climbing rose too. I sowed some sweet peas to provide some quick height this year because I love the cut flowers in the house and I wanted as many flowers as possible this year to encourage pollinating insects for the veggies.

I found some really good value fruit trees so bought two different apples which will grow as espaliers against this wall and a cherry (Stella) which is planted at the bottom of the garden. Its not a huge garden and the neighbours have some mature trees so it doesn't need too many trees and certainly not large ones, but the house name is Rowan Lea and I had a Rowan in my last garden so I had to have one here too - a birthday present has provided that and it has been planted in view of the kitchen window where it will throw shade over the patio and the dog runs at different times of the day.

I hope to add some either needle junipers or some golden elm column trees right at the bottom, which along with some trellis will hide an ugly wooden 'fence' belonging to the neighbours.

Welcome

This first post will try to set the scene and over the next few days I will bring the Blog up to date with where the garden here at Rowan Lea is at.

We moved in December last year, and even though we had rented for a year I had spent a lot of time making that garden nicer for the people that rented it next, but it wasn't the same as having my own garden to create.

One of the things that appealed about this house was that the garden was effectively a blank canvas. The house is in hamlet alongside a main road and the garden isn't huge, but it is a nice size. Behind us there are a few houses and then just fields for miles. We don't have a front garden, but when we look across the road, the fields stretch away up the hill into the distance - crops in the first two fields (with hares) and then trees (the cemetery).

The garden in December was a concrete area outside the back door, a rectangular lawn, a paved path down one side and a narrow border on the other. At the end of the garden an area was 'paved' with large stone sets (very uneven) and offered space for a shed (which turned out to be rotten). There was a small 'rockery' using some stone and mostly concrete.

The first priority was to make space and site dog runs. We decided to put them right by the house on the ugly concrete slab. Dad came over and helped us set out some large (very large) concrete paving stones to extend the area. We put the runs up and the dogloos inside. Next step was to demolish the shed and then get a new one up. I bought a mini shed to stand by the dog runs, useful for storing dog food and tools initially, and a larger shed for the end of the garden.

I wasn't going to do anything else with the garden this year, prioritising the house instead, but I couldn't resist. I bought a few plants and decide to shape the lawn - its now a roughly 6m diameter circle. The rockery was overhauled so it was stone and not concrete and new shrubs went in - they are only tiny but they will grow.

An obelisk went in at the end (next to the gate) with passionfruit to grow up it.

Then I found some strange large grooved bricks buried in the garden - enough to make a curved path across the lawn with the stone sets placed between then and then carried on to make a small 'patio' at the end of the garden - still to be finished when the old shed timber is disposed of).

I had over ordered on the slate for the kitchen floor so there was enough to make a square patio at the top of the garden. There were enough 60cm square concrete slabs unwanted to make a raised hexagonal pond shape (will need lining etc).

I really wanted to take on an allotment BUT with a house to renovate it really wasn't practical so I put in three 1 metre square raised beds for veggies. (see separate post).

I have grown clematis and passion flower from seed as well as buying some in, and they will grow across the trellis fence along the concrete wall at one side of the garden and make a lovely backdrop. I brought some pots of alliums with us and they have flowered, although some kind slug ate the sides of the stems and some of them flopped - never mind they will go in the garden now and may be better next year.

We have a toad and a frog in the garden and loads of birds - see 'Blackies' post later on. We found three flatworms (think they were the NZ ones) and yet we have a huge earthworm population so maybe they do settle into a balance over time.

The soil condition is lovely - the worms have obviously been doing their work and this suggests that 'no-dig' is healthy for a garden.

I have dug so many unused slates out of the ground that I have been able to use them as a decorative mulch on a bed dedicated to ferns, hostas and sedges.