In yesterday’s post, I explained how I went about making the initial plans for our garden. One of the main decisions we’ve had to make is how much living space we should sacrifice for growing space. With this in mind, I’ve been looking around for inspiration online and I have to say, I’m starting to […]
Read MoreWhen one has less than 33 square metres with which to scratch the gardening itch, every centimetre counts and so it’s important to ensure that planning is done carefully in advance.1. Work out what will affect your gardeningAs you can see from the initial sketch below, our terraced Victorian house in London has a small […]
Read MoreSpace in London is at a premium and we guard it jealously. When we first bought Garlic Towers, we were shocked to find that our rotting and decrepit (and for some reason, bright blue) fence wasn’t actually standing on our boundary but that we’d lost almost a foot (or about 30cm) from the back of […]
Read MoreA while back I asked our neighbour (the King Of Ivy) to please trim the Buddleia in his front garden as it was starting to invade our space and to cut out all of the light to our sitting room. I was slightly aghast to come home yesterday and find that he’d hired someone to […]
Read MoreOr rather, here we go peering at Mulberry sticks. In a fit of optimism last year, I decided that as we only intend to keep this house for two or three years before the whispered lull of the countryside becomes a full-throated roar, that I could get a jump start on several heirloom plants. One […]
Read MoreWhen I was younger my primary school apparently used to ask parents to save their junk boxes (cereals etc) and loo rolls for “junk modelling” sessions. When I was older my mother told me she always liked dropping off whole boxes at the school as it cleared a cupboard, only to have to sigh in […]
Read More…The trick? Divided areas. The GarlicCats are much loved members of the family and, as such, we’re eager for them to share our little outdoor patch behind the house. However, I don’t believe that any home is complete without cut flowers and although most of the garden is going to be devoted to edibles, it’s […]
Read MoreOne of the first things that needed to be done when we took over our garden was to fight back against the wilderness that occupied the space we so badly wanted as ours. So a mammoth pruning session ensued (tempered slightly by the discovery of a nest in a neighbour’s overhanging bush that we didn’t […]
Read MoreI have a special fondness for Shrove Tuesday. Mr Garlic is particularly adept at flipping pancakes and let’s face it, there’s little better as a treat in this world than crepes. The British Hedgehog Preservation Society sent out a twitter challenge to see who could come up with hedgehog-themed pancakes and I couldn’t resist taking part. […]
Read MoreGreetings from a tiny, hitherto unloved patch of patio in South-West London now occupied by Mr Garlic, our two GarlicCats and I. I’ll be writing about the challenges of taking a tiny urban garden behind our Victorian house (and the side return) and growing as much edible produce as is possible. I’ll also chuck in […]
Read More
London to Land Girl 