Ideagarden

Our little kitchen garden in 2009 was, overall, a success. We managed to be 90% self-sufficient in veg during a six week period in summer. The only thing we bought were onions. We had some failures – the pigeons got the broccoli, the butternut squash rotted-off after setting (only harvested three – and small ones at that) and I overcrowded the spring onions. However we had wonderful crops of carrots, potatoes, green beans, berlotto beans, lettuce and sorrel. Even my three tumbler tomato plants yielded around three kilos of cherry-sized fruit – with a last little greeny lot in November that got ripened a bit indoors before being roasted off and then dumped into a curry.

Growing your own has really given me a new appreciation for food and I value its existence much more than the stuff I’ve bought from the supermarket. I do my best not to waste anything I’ve bought but I’ve discovered an almost obsessive determination to use up everything I’ve grown.

There is still a last lot of parsnips to lift even now. I feel a roast dinner coming on…

Photos by S. Arrowsmith

Finally I can show you rows of seedlings now that we have built raised beds. I’m hoping that these little green shoots will turn into parsnips, carrots, beetroot, salad leaves, American landcress and sorrel. Elsewhere in the garden we have potatoes (in tubs) spinach, green and borlotto beans, cavalo nero and broccoli. Given that we don’t have any real greenhouse type space I’ve placed an order for plug plants of tumbler tomatoes, butternut squash and sweetcorn – hopefully they’ll turn up in the next couple of weeks.

The woodland bit of the garden put on a real display this year. Above is a picture of some of the helebores and the daffs and below are my latest purchase – anenomes.

Photo S. Arrowsmith

This cyclamen is yet another plant that wanted to lanquish and rest for a year before putting out flowers. I’m beginning to see a pattern here, things clearly take their time to settle into this garden. We also have some pink ones but the cats keep sitting on them.

Photos by S. Arrowsmith

The herb garden (left) was looking very lush and being very productive this year and the white Lavatera (right) has condescended to remain upright and not grow along the ground as it did last year.  The Lavetera does need major pruning every year just to stop it taking over west Cambridge but advice from the interwebs says that you shouldn’t prune it back until the spring or the shrub could sustain frost damage and revert back to being pink. I keep wondering why that should happen but my biology education is somewhat lacking.

Photos by S. Arrowsmith

I’m finding it quite hard to find new ways to blog about the garden this year. Last year I was very enthused, I had a brief, came up with a concept and then set about designing it and planting it out. Of course a garden is a living thing and once you’ve put everything in place you have to let it grow. This year I have not really set myself any brief other than try and keep the slugs off the beans.

Above is a rambling rose Albertine that flowered for the first time this year, and the other picture is of a giant untidy geranium with the great name Splish Splash. The rose smells gorgeous and I had an interesting time tying it in to the huge elder I want it to climb through (never forget that roses have thorns). The geranium needs moving because it is too tall for the front of the border. I wonder if I can do that ‘dividing’ thing that proper garderners do?

Photo by S. Arrowsmith

Perhaps I should call this bit of the website ‘Cat Watch’. But I couldn’t resist putting up this photo – I love the way that you can see the full shape of the lawn in this picture. I’m really pleased with the way the design turned out.

Photo by S. Arrowsmith
The garden is just starting to wake up and I should get off my backside and go and do some weeding. I planted a pack of six Hellebore plants in Oct 06 and after a very long wait they have finally flowered!

Photo by S. Arrowsmith

It would appear that we have our very own garden Robin. Happy Christmas!

Photo by S. Arrowsmith

It’s all been very quiet in the garden this autumn. Some mulch got put down, mainly to stop the cats digging up the new bulbs that we put in. And as I write this I am wincing slightly because there are still some that need to go in the ground and are currently malingering in the kitchen by the back door. Every time I get determined, we have another frost and I abandon ideas of digging. It would appear that I find it all too easy to procrastinate. Fair weather gardener me.

Photo by S. Arrowsmith

When I moved to Cambridge I brought with me several plants in pots, including a pot of Japanese Anemones that hadn’t flowered for four years. Last November I took them out, divided them into three and planted them out. And this year they flowered their hats off!