My Garden Blog

Well, for my first post I thought I had better write myself a statement of intent about what I am going to do in this blog, no doubt it will alter and change over time into something different or better. So at least I know what I set out intending to do.

I have been gardening as hobby for just over a year now after moving into a house with an actual garden. Other homes I had lived in had poky little gravel patches which never really captured my imagination to do anything with. I would however grow the odd thing here and there, usually like most people some herbs or strawberry's but nothing more. For many years I had considered an allotment, the idea of growing my own vegetables and learning something new made me apply for my own plot. After a year and a half on the waiting list I finally got one and off I went! The plot seemed fine and I had some really good guys around who had been doing it for years. After many hours, days, weeks and months of getting it clear and planting a few things my plot didn't seem so good! It turned out I had picked a bad one, the one that floods every time it rains a little, the one infested with Mares Tail, the one that NO ONE WANTED!I lost heart in it all and went back to my poky gravel pit garden and put the allotmenteering behind me.

But then we moved to Nottinghamshire and the semi rural bliss of D.H. Lawrence country and into a house with a garden, with grass, with soil and a decent amount of it too! Its no small holding by any stretch of the imagination but its certainly enough for me to do the things that I wanted to do, grow some veg, some flowers and shrubs and have somewhere to be outside. This is the point where I show you what I am working with......

As you can see it is not a bad size garden and there is plenty to do! These picture were taken last year and it has advanced a little since then. In the above picture you can see me starting my raised beds with builders bottom to go with it up at the top of the garden. The middle picture is were (what I call the none productive garden) flower garden is. And the first picture is the paved patio area next to the house. Its been nicely sectioned into three for me with my shed right in the middle. I have plenty to do!

I am a novice and prone to many novice mistakes. Take my raised beds for instance, I would totally do them a different way now than I did when I put them in. I can grow in them fine but I did not make them as accessible as I could have. And that annoys me. To limit my ignorance I have read up alot over the last year online and with various well know garden authors so this year I am slightly wiser than last. Despite my lack of knowledge and or abilities I did fine last year and I am told it was a bad one. I got lots of garlic, onions, potatoes, broccoli, beetroot and more tomatoes than I could ever eat, so I have been pretty pleased with myself as you can imagine.  I am expecting to do even better this year.

The point of this blog then is to record how I am doing with the garden, more for my won reference than anything else but if its interesting or helpful for others then that's an added bonus. I have tried keeping my own note book on this but the Mrs took it an now uses it to write her shopping lists and other such things in it.