It's over two years now since we moved to this house, and I'm ashamed to say that for the last two years we've just ignored the potential harvest from the two damson trees in our garden. This year was different though! Firstly I made the effort to go and pick the damsons before they all became mush in the grass, and after washing them I put them in plastic bags in the freezer until I had a bit more time to get organised. We love damson gin, but have been finding it increasingly difficult to buy without going to farmers' markets and shops. A quick request on a few internet ... read more
Is it really October?
I mean really? Is my calendar wrong? Is it not July, or maybe August? Both today and yesterday we've eaten lunch in the garden, worn summer clothes and had to apply sun cream to Little Miss C. But, to top it all, this is what I found when I looked at our strawberry patch yesterday! A red strawberry, nearly ready to pick, in October! Seasonal madness! ... read more
A late harvest
I have absolutely no idea as to why but this year it has taken an absolute age before any of my tomatoes would actually turn red. Better late than never though we are now finally enjoying a (modest) harvest. Luckily this has coincided with a late heatwave meaning that eating salad is much more acceptable than it normally is in late September, and it saves me having to actually cook them up in some way! ... read more
Simple things in the garden
Give a little girl a garden full of things to collect and a bucket in which to put them and you have an hour of fun! ... read more
Garden characters
Finding the camera card reader means I can finally introduce you to a couple of new characters in our garden. More photos and accompanying words to follow shortly... ... read more
Starting off the growing season
One really useful aspect of writing this blog is that I can look back and see exactly when I was doing things in the garden last year. It was the middle of March when I wrote about our very first steps at growing our own vegetables and at that stage my first tomato seedlings had started to appear. This year's went in today, and with a germination period of between 7 and 14 days I guess that means I'm right on track. In addition to some Gardener's Delight that came free with the February issue of Gardener's World magazine, I've also tried planting some leek. I've ... read more
Winter pansies
With all the wet weather of the last 24 hours it seems hard to imagine that just a week ago I managed an afternoon gardening. Most of the time that we've lived in this house (over a year now!) I've been either pregnant or juggling a small baby. Neither completely prevented gardening, but when the garden was such a blank canvas that most of the work was heavy stuff it did mean that I didn't get to do much. Mr C has done a fantastic amount of work out there to turn it into (half) a proper garden with borders (have I told you all about that yet? Possibly not!) so I can actually ... read more
Harvest
Finally an opportunity to spend some time in the garden today actually doing some gardening. I'm delighted to say that we were also able to harvest all the carrots that I grew from seed. The courgette plants are still producing a few and some of the beetroots are also ready.For anyone interested the courgettes are Black Beauty and the carrots are Royal Chantenay Red. Both of these seeds came from the BBC Dig In campaign. Also in the picture is one of the first beetroots that we've harvested - a Boltardy one.Interestingly there is quite a bit of variety in the sizes of the carrots ... read more
Too much rain?
We've had some monsoon like rain here in St Albans these last few days. After all this hot weather the garden could certainly do with the water and our lawn is looking much greener than it has in months. I'm not too sure that the chilli seedlings that had been put out to harden off are quite as happy though. Their growth had stalled somewhat inside, but I get a funny feeling that they've just drowned now! ... read more
Potatoes and Tomatoes
It seems that not all our growing efforts are in vain this year after all. Our first attempt at growing potatoes was via a free kit that you could send off for from the BBC Gardeners' World Magazine. The kit contained Vales Emerald seed potatoes and also a patio bag to grow them in. It really was as simple as filling the bag with compost, putting the seed potatoes in and ensuring that they got plenty of water. This afternoon we decided to see what the bag contained and we were pretty content with our results. Hopefully we'll get to eat them some time this ... read more