Growing

About a year ago, I bought an unnecessary hedge-trimmer. My neighbour, who always kept the hedge between our fronts trimmed, was moving.

As it happened, the new neighbour was well-equipped and happy to do my side.

It’s not a great secret that I had let my garden get way past being unruly. This was partly due to my tendency to procrastinate, but also worsened by disheartened a couple of times when I might have done something about it.

4 years ago, I got some guys in to do some work for me, and they were a disaster – I ended up sending them packing. One of the things they did was fill all 4 of my veg troughs with clay, topped with about half an inch of compost – instead of the “good soil” they had quoted.

More on my back garden. The gardeners who laid my front lawn also did two heavy jobs for me in the back. They emptied all my vegetable troughs – which were still half-filled with clay, from the gardeners we no longer mention – and they laid down more gravel around the troughs.

As mentioned before, I had gardeners here mid-May, and their main job was to lay a new lawn.

I’ve got gardeners coming in just over a week, and so I have been tidying my garden. Makes sense?

Further to my last post; of course, having my veg troughs emptied in May is going to somewhat limit my planting schedule this year. So I have ordered seeds for some quick-growing plants, which I might hope to get into the soil in March and harvest by the beginning of May.

In May, I have some gardening help booked in to arrive, with two major jobs to do. One is relaying my front lawn, which is totally disgusting. The other major job they are doing is topping up the gravel around my vegetable area, and digging out my vegetable troughs. But I am also thinking of rearranging them.

A very modest crop from my lemon cucumber plant, although there may well be more on the way.

I’ve just gone through all the plants, only picking the good firm sprouts, and not worrying about any that weren’t – they went in the garden waste with the plants.

Even so, I have a ridiculous amount of sprouts. Far too many to eat before they go bad.

I’ve been harvesting the odd tomato here and then, as the ripen on the vine, but I have now given up and stripped my plants of the remaining tomatoes. Which are actually quite a few.