The Garden
January 2006
I spent last summer digging up pretty much everything and re-organising it all, with the result that the garden is now very bare but much better organised. Most of the plants which will grow up have actually been planted, but as they are still small and leafless, they have a long way to go.
Where to start?
Well,
the bay tree has grown right up now - it's probably big enough to supply the
whole of Pimhole! I wonder what people will trade me for bay leaves . . .
?!
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At the base of the bay tree, towards the front of the middle section of the garden, is a bare patch. I'm planning on putting in cabbages here this year. The twig you can see is actually a blackcurrant plant - of which I now have three in this middle section - and to the left is a blueberry bush. These will form the 'middle' layer of food-producing plants when they fruit, as per my permaculture handbook. The bay tree is the 'upper' layer. Behind the bay tree is an apple tree - just twigs at the minute - which again, will be a fruit-bearing 'upper' layer.
On the left side of the front of the 'middle bit', I have some garlic growing, which was left over from the old garden. In digging it all up, I dispersed the cloves, which have all sprouted into new garlic plants. I'll have to find out when to dig them up! More cabbages going in on this side, too, in April.
I also have strawberry plants to give ground cover in this middle section of the garden, and a few hardy decorative flowers to give a bit of colour.
On the 'left' side of the garden, at the front, is a small patch containing a dwarf pear tree - again, just a twig at the moment - and a few thymes and other ground cover plants, like an oxalis. More strawberry plants, too, and a rockery with a few bulbs of some description - don't know what they are, they were left over from the previous arrangement!
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On the 'right' side of the garden is a 'forest floor' kind of arrangement. This section is against the North-facing wall at the bottom of the garden, so I thought it would be ideal for a forest kind of habitat. There are a few logs piled up to rot down, provide a home for fungi and frogs (which I will come on to later), moss, a few bluebells planted there as well as hyacinth and daffodil which are in there somewhere. A few grape hyacinths are already coming up at the right-hand-side. There are also a few tulips in there, violets and a blackberry plant, which will provide fruit in the autumn. This blackberry plant will probably end up taking over the whole of that little section.
On the left of the garden, behind the rockery and next to the South-West facing wall of the garden against which the grapevine is trained (Queen of Esther), is a new system of two ponds. When I first set up the water butt, I hooked it into the drainpipe incorrectly. When the butt is full, any further water coming down is supposed to go back into the drainpipe, but the way I set it up it doesnt, it overflows from under the lid of the water butt on the other side. I took advantage of this mistake to provide a waterfall which feeds the upper pond, constructed above ground level with some old bricks and spare plastic sheeting I had hanging around. Another artificial channel runs from the lower end of the upper pond down to the lower pond, which has a couple of small fish as residents. The waterfall automatically changes the water in the ponds, without the need for me to do it, but less frequently in the lower pond, which means that there is a more constant temperature there for the fish. Come the spring I'm going to get some frogspawn from somewhere, and populate the upper pond with tadpoles. Hopefully the resulting frogs will help to keep the garden slug-free.
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In December I actually spotted a small adult frog swimming under the ice in the lower pond. Amazing! I am miles from any standing water, in the middle of a housing estate. Nature is more resilient than we think, sometimes!
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I only have a couple of pots left, one with a raspberry cane in it in the shade, and one with an olive in it, which is in the centre of the patio. It seems to be doing OK so far, but is still quite small.
At the back of the garden is space for perennial vegetables. At the back of the 'middle' section I have perpetual spinach growing, which is doing OK. At the back of the 'right' side of the garden there was a lot of stuff growing which I'm getting rid of by covering the section with black plastic bags. I've built it up a bit as well with soil improver, to try to get it in the sun a bit more, as it is against the North-facing wall at the bottom of the garden.
In April, when I sow the cabbages, I'll sow this section at the same time with swiss chard. I've got some pak choi seeds too, to have a go at growing that also.
Although it's the middle of January, there are already buds on the blackcurrant bushes and other plants too. The perpetual spinach is doing well.
Where the pots were on the drive, I've now built some raised beds, surrounding the tyre pots. These beds are for annual vegetables, and I've already planted some onions, peas, beans and the like - I'll have to see how they get on this year. I've also put a propagator on top of my small shed, facing South, with a few seeds in it. Probably much too early for any results, and whatever comes up might get 'got' by the February frosts, but worth a go to see what happens!
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Not bad for such a small garden, eh?!
