Reflections

July and August are such great months for the garden(er). The results of all the hard work back in spring are on display and it is time to sit back and take it all in.
It is also the moment to evaluate the effect of all combinations and see what is worth repeating and what could be improved on next year.
The dahlias once again are a big success and keep on producing wonderful flowers.

Unfortunately most of the sunflowers got eaten by slugs (grrr) and they did not manage to shine like they did last year. And once again I completely misjudged the amount of space certain plants need. My tomato jungle is joined by a pattison forrest which does not seem to stop growing and the undergardener is only just about tolerating them creeping over the border-grass boundary.

And I vaguely remember planting phlox, picked up at a plant swap earlier this year, somewhere in the garden this spring. I gave up on it, thinking it also fell victim to the slugs. But to my great surprise it stuck its head up through the crop canopy, right next to the tiny apple tree which is also swamped by the tomatoes.

Next year we definitely have to change something about the way we grow the runner beans. The garden fence is a handy help for them to climb onto, but perhaps it is just a little too adventurous and not very practical to get a ladder to pick the beans from the neighbour’s tree.

Spring has sprung

Spring is slowly thinking of arriving in our garden. It shows its face intermittently between spells of rain and hail and warms the garden when the sun breaks through the clouds. I have been so busy sowing seeds and potting on that I didn’t even have time for a blog update.
But this weekend it was bitterly cold, so I postponed putting on my wellies for a bit before rooting around in the freezing earth to catch up with my blog.

The big garden plan requires quite some new plants, for which I happily spent a good few hours browsing online for the seeds this winter. As it has been so mild the last few months, I optimistically started some of the seeds already in January. In the meanwhile the undergardener made me a big shelf in the shed for my pots and plants acting as a surrogate greenhouse.
I even performed an experiment Monty (Don, from BBC’s Gardener’s World) would be proud of: I started some broadbeans inside and planted half of them outside while the others were potted on and slowly hardened off in the shed. Turns out these little beans are so tough, they don’t seem to mind the cold nights and happily stay outside!

In the meanwhile the shed and the window sills in the whole house start to fill up with seedlings. Time to start planting out?!