So this weekend has been a proper weekend with relaxing and doing gardening and enjoying the world. As I was chatting to my neighbour I was discussing the fact that we’re approaching the next period of time when I actually have to do some maintenance on the house, which’ll be not nearly so much fun.
But for the moment, I’ve been out there gardening and starting to prep the garden for autumn and winter.
The vertical garden we just let do its own thing. Every so often we throw more soil and compost in the top because we didn’t know how to build it when we made it, and now have various problems with the soil leaking out. Apart from that we periodically chuck new plants into it to see what does well, usually by a process of the previous plant dying. Thyme and the big leafy plant who’s name is totally escaping me but is delicious and lemony Sorrel. with fish, incidentally.
Anyhow, that’s being pleasingly enthusiastic at the moment:
Even our tomatoes seem to have survived our holiday absence and although they could benefit from a bit of a feeding up, they’re looking pretty good. Sadly, the ones that have done really well are the big cooking tomatoes which are fine for making sauce out of, but are way too mealy to make a decent sandwich or salad tomato.
I have, however, dug over the lower raised bed (in the process discovering (cutting through) three previously hidden potatoes). Into it have gone a few left-over cabbage and cauliflower plants. And many slug pellets. This bed was going to have a greenhouse in part of it, with the intention that it’d be shaded by the neighbour’s massive hedge and tree. But the new neighbour’s had the entire garden completely cleared; leaving this now completely exposed.
So we may have to rethink that plan.
The carrot & celeriac bed has gone wild; we need to pull some more carrots and see if we’ve managed to produce any edible celeriac (it’s got a while longer to grow before we need to pull it, anyhow). The poppys are still soldiering on too.
Hopefully this week I’ll get the path up that far, and we can start to get in there a bit.
And finally, the upper pea-bed has been converted to a cabbage and cauliflower bed; the pea-supports have been carefully de-erected and the bed dug over, and in with some fresh plants.
I have to admit we cheated on the plants; they’re bought as we didn’t get around to planting them in time. But we were at the store and thought ‘hey, what the hell’. We’ve got a bunch of green manure to go in, and lots of mulch to go over the top of the bed that’s three-quarters dug down by the monkey-puzzle.
It is all coming together. We may, just may, actually put the garden to bed properly this year. Although that’s big words with not a lot of faith behind them.
