Vegetable and fruit gardening
My garden furniture is 8 years old, and I really haven’t taken the care of it that I should.
It was on my list of things to do for a long time, so when I hired some gardeners to do some work, stripping and retreating it was high on the list.
However, I am considering an alternative.
For the first time in about 4 years, I have all 4 of my vegetable troughs planted with vegetables. But boy, that 4th one was tough.
I planned a trip to the garden centre today. With nothing to plant in my recently cleared third veg trough (of four), and not yet having any herbs for my recently bought VegTrug Herb Table, I needed to do some shopping.
My garden has gone through a couple of years of neglect. This started with a year where I did very little, then when faced with the work needed to bring it all back, simply procrastinated. In November last year, I…
This is the latest harvest from the pear tree in my garden.
I already have a dozen pears in the fridge, to facilitate ripening (they will be coming out in a day or two, and going into a paper bag).
This batch is the pick of the large un-fallen fruit, plus a couple of dropped fruit that appeared undamaged (an achievement, as the landing is on gravel or stone). It also meant lopping a couple of branches to get to them – they needed to be lopped anyway, as this tree is *supposed* to grow along my garage, not over it.
As mentioned in previous years, I have an established pear tree growing along the wall of my garage. It is in entirely the wrong position, being on a north-facing wall; which makes the tree perpetually try to grow over the garage to get sun.
Since my last post, I really haven’t spent much time in the garden – between an injured leg (now recovered), a vacation, and – most recently – a bad cold, I have really been neglecting the poor thing. Taking a walk around today, I feel shamed.
I harvested my last broad beans over 3 weeks ago, but have only just cleared the trough for further planting. Remembering to cut all the stems just above ground level, leaving the roots in place. This evening I’ll dig them well in, as they contain lots of valuable nitrogen.
I had the morning off today, so I thought I would go out in the sun and dig over a couple of my veg troughs, ready for spring planting. The veg troughs being waist height (well, hip height on me) it is fairly kind to the back, using a hand fork and trowel.
It hasn’t been a very productive year this year. It was nothing to do with the weather, or soil conditions; it was simply a case of procrastination and laziness, and not getting things into the earth when I needed to. It’s true that the late spring threw me, but I have nothing to blame but myself. I’ve just annoyed myself by walking around the garden, and thinking what I could have planted to over-winter.
