It is hard to believe that we've been pottering away at this garden for just over a year now - where have the last 12 months gone? Clearly, purchasing a new property (or, more accurately, an old property) carries with it lots of hidden extras, We've been lucky in that many of them have been pleasant surprises. Unfortunately, not all! Issues over planning permission (involving retention of the house and outbuildings) rather stalled any work we wanted to do (with an expensive house re-build a possibility, we decided not to commit ourselves too much). Fortunately, we are now out the other side, with the same house and outbuildings we went in with. The only real casualty of the whole affair has been "The Orchard", which has been almost completely dug up and filled in again (new sewage treatment system). On the plus side, we hadn't done anything there and it does leave us with rather a nice blank canvas to work with - an orchard and amongst a wildflower meadow is now on the cards.
Elsewhere, things are much as they were at the start of last summer. The one veg bed we completed supplied a wonderful crop of Broad and Runner Beans. The peas were quite good, and any failures there are due to the delay in getting them planted out more than anything else. The cabbage bed never got finished, so the cabbages were a bit of a waste, and out of the nine tomato plants we produced one tomato (and it wasn't anything to write home about) must try again this year. The herbs were fantastic, the courgettes in pots performed quite well and the salad bed came up trumps as it always does. With the halt called to work last year, we're bursting at the seams to get going this year - wonder what big problems we've failed to foresee lie in wait for us in 2011!
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| "The Orchard" (with new, improved, sceptic tank!) |
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| The veg plot (still got to finish that second bed...) |
