I am so frustrated with my blackthorn bushes. I bought them from one of those “Send a tree as a gift” places as a gift for someone that couldn’t make the Christmas party that I intended to hand them over at. So into the beds they went (and into some mulled apple juice went the […]
Read MoreOn Easter Monday the lovely Mr Garlic helped me to do a whole morning of gardening. Because I’m stuck on the knee scooter with a broken foot (and my stupid scooter doesn’t fit into the side return), he was wonderful and shuttled back and forth with bags of soil and bean shoots and all sorts […]
Read MoreOne thing I’ve always been prone to do is put things off. I wait happily for harvest from my main plants, thinking that I’ll have nothing until then. And to a certain extent, that’s true because I have so little space in my tiny urban allotment garden. But this year I’ve decided to really try […]
Read MoreMy side return is, by definition, narrow. And the raised beds that I have there (filled with garlic and rhubarb) are currently performing very nicely. I have eight varieties of garlic in there, and three of rhubarb. The side return is technically south facing but it’s so narrow that the sun hits it for about […]
Read MoreWarbled (badly) to the tune of Gloria Gaynor’s “I will survive”At first I was afraid, I was petrifiedBrought home from RHS Wisley (that plant shop outside)And then I spent all winter long, feeling sorry for myselfIn the cloche I’d hide, feeling safer there insideI took my time, I will surviveFor a while there I looked […]
Read MoreOnce the first flurry of joyous seed sowing starts, I find that things quickly settle down to a comfortable rhythm of sowing and potting on. So it was with a big smile on my face that I proceeded to move the first of my tiny sprouts into small pots on the weekend. I think that […]
Read MoreLast month I mentioned that I’ve cleverly broken my foot (to be exact, I’ve sustained a Lisfranc fracture which is a horrible thing that takes months to recover from). This has been difficult enough in terms of looking after the GarlicBaby (who is starting to crawl – eek!) but at least there we’ve been able […]
Read MoreI have a certain fondness for gooseberries, something that I think is shown by the fact that I’ve squeezed five bushes (two green hinnomakis, two red hinnomakis and a trusty old invicta) into my tiny space. They’re marvelous things, gooseberries, useful for everything from a liquor to liven up fizz through to pies. They’re one […]
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 […]
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London to Land Girl 