To gnome or not to gnome…

I am not a big fan of gnomes, that doesn’t mean I am against garden orniments, I love them, but  everyones taste is different.  This  doesn’t mean a gnome will be rejected if he happened  to  take a fancy to a spot in my garden, but I am not likely to go to a cat & gnome home to  find one either!

I want my garden to reflect who I am. However I cannot afford the life size virgin Mary statue I saw on e bay,  so I will have to make do with simplier items to adorn my garden with.
I have decided I want to start collecting Mushroom’s, gods, cherubs & farm animals! Why? No idea!

I also put up the rest of my greenhouses too!
Then I potted up my sweet pea’s. This batch are next to my front door, so the smell will hit me whenever I go in or out! Yum!

March! Spring?

Hello! Its been a while! I have done so much work to the garden now! Please go to MY GARDEN for details!
So spring is here!
I now have some pots of flowers on the go & the ground work is pretty much done, so I am ready to sow really! It’s very exciting!

I don’t know if I mentioned this but my boyfriend bought me a garden planner for Christmas. It is so useful! I have listed everything I have potted up in it & also the dates, so if things don’t go well, or if they do, I will have some sort of guide for next year!

As I already said the plan is to have a sensory garden (see Little Acorns Grow) as well as an edible one, so my girls can really be interested in what I am doing, and hopefully eat more veg!
I also got 3 packs of Mushroom spores for Christmas and I managed to get some silver birch stumps for them to go into!

I bought 3 plastic green houses today & 4 cloches. I have one up already with my first batch of seeds in hardening off.

I have started some of my sweetpeas, my musselbourgh leeks and my red baron onions.
All are doing well. They have been sitting on my chest of drawers in my bedroom, where it is nice & sunny and are all coming on well, so well I have put them into the greenhouse to slow them down.
I also bought a wooden obelisk of willow from a pound shop, although it wasn’t a pound! And I also got a nice pot for £5 reduced from £25! Bargin!

Vegetables so far…

This is a little chart of the vegetables I have bought to date, when they need to be sown & planted out and the plots which they will be grown in.This is the key:

CL- Climber
R – Roots
O – Others
P - Pots
HP-Herb Pots
V- Vegetable
ST- Sowing time
H-Harvest
PL-Plot placement

Once I have collected all my seeds I will put a full list up as well as the cost for them all.
The plan is to make the garden as colorful, scented & edible as possible!

(coming as soon as I work out how to post a table!)

Here we go!

I have been collecting seeds over the winter, this is becoming much easier now as garden centers are beginning to stock up.
I have seeds from Suttons, Mr Fothergills & Thompson & Morgan, although I have been told that Aldi & Wilkinson’s seeds are just as reliable and a fraction of the price.
An average pack of seeds costs around £1.50 up to £3.50, compare that to Aldi’s & Wilkinson’s 29p & 39p and you can see why they have been recommended to me.
As soon as they are in stock I shall be down like a shot!

My mum told me that everyone over buying when they start out, so I have been cautious to what I have bought.
Dr. D.G.Hessayon’s wonderful book
The Vegetable & Herb Expert
has been really helpful,
explaining that there are
three types of crop,
ROOTS – BRASSICAS – OTHERS
Roots are your carrots, parsnips, potato’s, basically veg that grows down deep into the soil.
Brassicas are broccoli, brussels, cabbage, turnip, veg who’s growth is mainly on the top of the plot, with a medium depth of root.
And finally, the others being things like beans, squashes, tomato.

However, I have found at this stage it is easier to understand by breaking down OTHERS into two more groups,
CLIMBERS – CREEPERS
Climbers are your beans, pea’s.
Creepers are your squashes, marrows, courgette’s.