Winter in the polytunnel

Winter in the poly tunnel should be a time of leaves and carefully staggered late crops of things but mine looks a bit like the half price sale at a garden centre that’s going out of business. We’ve been so very busy lately that we haven’t been able to find the time to get some […]

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Getting our fruit trees FIG-ured out

You may remember that a couple of years ago I was utterly baffled by a little Brown Turkey fig that I grew in a small pot on my London patio. After a year of doing nothing interesting, this small but determined fig tree suddenly started to fruit over the winter and then promptly died for […]

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Planning (more) fruit futures

The weather is dank and dark, the heating still isn’t working and the dog refuses to recall but I find I drift easily away from all of these petty everyday issues when I think of summer and the bumper soft fruit crops I hope we’re going to get. I’ve become increasingly irritated by supermarket soft […]

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Planting an orchard

In our rush to become self-sufficient, we somewhat madly placed an order for 32 bare-rooted fruit trees, 160 raspberry canes, 36 fruit bushes and 10 rhubarb plants the day that we exchanged on our little smallholding and a couple of weeks ago, they arrived. Faced with all these bushy twig things and a finite dormant […]

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Counting (on) strawberries and pineberries

I’ve toyed with gardening for years but lately I find myself obsessed with my garden. I wander the patio, chatting with the seedlings and glorying in every extra centimetre that my plants grow. Extra leaves are cause for jubilation and I drag my poor husband into the garden and demand that he admire every emerging […]

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Plums in potentia: Marjorie’s seedling hopefully bearing fruit at last

Way back in the mists of time (2014), I planted up my then brand new raised beds for the first time with a wide variety of expensive plants, all of which were doomed to die and be replaced within two years. All, except my Marjorie’s seedling plum tree. Since then I have loved it, I […]

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Going up in the world: The amazing climbing strawberry "Mount Everest"

I wonder if I’m being a bit too ambitious with all of the unusual plants that I’m taking on this year? First the hanging raspberry (which has admittedly keeled over as promised but has yet to produce any fruiting fronds), and now this, a climbing strawberry. I’m trying the perennial “Mount Everest” climbing strawberry plant. […]

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Zombie plants: Back from the dead!

Amazingly, some of the pineberries that I planted in my hanging bag are coming back to life. Better still, they’re actually starting to fruit! It’s important to cover the plants with straw or glass over the winter to protect them, as they’re rather fragile and delicate. I failed to do so, being occupied with the […]

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Ask not fig whom the bell tolls…

It finally happened. I was so thrilled by my Brown Turkey fig tree as it produced so many overwintering figs, you know, over winter. And as we’re having such a warm snap at the moment, I thought I’d pop it outside so that it could enjoy some of this lovely bright sunshine. So I popped […]

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Photo Friday: Bare raspberry canes attracting small creatures

I have decided that every Friday I will post an image of the garden, without text. Hopefully it’ll become an interesting collection of images that chart the progress of the garden in 52 tiny details every year. This week’s is pretty self explanatory. Nobody is immune to raspberry canes!

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