A year in the garden

We spent yesterday in the garden tidying up the last of the annuals and trying to dig out all of the stinging nettles before the bulbs come up (a losing battle but I keep persevering). We live in a rented house but were lucky enough to find one that had a garden and a letting agent who was happy for us to use it! Anyway, whilst I was stood in the rain and had stopped for a break (having just banged my head on the bird feeders again - why do I never remember that they are there?) I tried to remember what the garden looked like just a year ago.

 This is what the garden looked like in September 2010:

Essentially a lawn, a dead apple tree and some paving slabs (oh and of course some stinging nettles). Over the winter we dug some borders around the edge of the lawn and bought some plant pots for the patio. We also made a cold frame to bring young plants on. We don’t have a greenhouse but luckily there is space in the house to germinate plants. Once established the seedlings can be moved to the to the cold frame (to make space for the next lot). The frame is made from wood and sterling board and the lid from polycarbonate sheeting.

This was very much a joint effort and we are still learning about ways to improve it. The frame needs some ventilation in calm weather (hence the lid being lifted by wood in the picture), it however needs to be closed in windy weather as the plants inside get damaged otherwise. Also we need to paint the inside white in order to allow more light to be reflected in to the frame (although tin foil stuck to the inside walls worked quite well as a temporary solution this year).

We had grown Lupins, Hollyhocks, Aquilegia and Delphiniums from seed at the end of 2009 that were still sitting in pots. So once the beds were dug in November (a little late but they seemed to take ok) we planted them out. We also started to buy seeds so that in the spring we could grow on our veg and flowers. It is much cheaper to grow plants from seed and we now had room to bring the young plants on.

Almost everything in the garden was grown from seed or cuttings and some of the plant pots are from recycled food containers. We grew the seedlings in cardboard toilet rolls to save on the number of plant pots we had to buy.

By June this year the garden was really flourishing:

We grew herbs in red IKEA waste paper bins and to our surprise this was a massive success. For some reason the slugs and snails did not seem to climb the pots so despite neighbouring pots having regular problems the herbs were ok! I don’t know whether it was the bright red colour or the slippery sides but even the Basil flourished with no slug problems at all for the whole summer! We will definitely do this again. Aphids became a huge problem in the summer demolishing the Lupins and Nasturtiums but my mum suggested spraying the plants with soap flakes diluted in water and this made a huge difference - thanks Mum!!!

The vegetables did quite well, well except for the butternut squash plants that grew about 3 m long and then died in a storm! L I think perhaps next time we need to plant them in a more sheltered spot. The carrots were huge and even at the end of the summer when we came to clear the bed there were about 1 kg of carrots left. We tried Florence Fennel for the first time and have discovered a new vegetable – so good in salads or griddled in some olive oil. The marrows just rotted on the plants but apparently this was a general problem this year. We had beetroot, spring onions, lettuce, rocket, chard, mange tout, broad beans and spinach consistently for several months having planted new seeds every couple of weeks or so. We will definitely grow these again because they were so easy to grow and it meant we had fresh vegetables all summer long.  

It has been so nice to watch the garden develop. Looking back at the photographs that we took when we moved in has reminded me just how little there was just over a year ago. There is still so much to do this year (if we can stay here – always a problem in a rented house). I am determined to try and get on top of the stinging nettles!