Blast from the past.

Guess what I found the other day...

This was my original garden plan, didn't get very far with that one!

This is the more recent one I began (two years ago...), looks more acurate, except I've now got to the stage where the garden is ahead of the plan!! It's going to change from this though. In this the lawn was going to be extended further back to make it more of a square shape, but think I'm just going to leave it as it is now. Mainly because it will leave more room for the raised beds at the back of the garden.

Progress has been slowed this week due to the weather, but I did make good progress last week. I ordered the compost and managed to get the first bed filled... I then got very carried away and leveled the second area off, built the bed and filled it. And all on the same day as I had lugged the 18 bags of compost from the front garden to the back... Needless to say, I was a bit achey the following day, but very pleased with myself :-)

Here's Bed 1 all filled up and ready to go.

Just need to clear the top right corner now so that I can get the next bed into place, that one is going to be a 1mx1m bed, but double the height. I'm planning to grow some spuds in there...

Which leads me to...

My chitting potatoes... what on earth does chitting mean and who came up with that name?!

Since getting the beds into place and filled with compost, it's been a real challenge resisting the urge to buy every lovely looking veg seed on the market. I know its already sowing time for some things but really don't want to rush into buying anything and then wish I'd got some other variety. I'm also wondering whether getting plug plants might be a good choice, as can see what I like growing without waisting loads of seeds... Only problem being the plugs are much more expensive... hmmmm... what to do!!

I ordered some books from Amazon last week and they arrived yesterday. Since they arrived I've been trying to read bit's whenever I get the chance. The one seems pretty good, haven't looked at the other too much yet, but seems like it could be really useful. I'll blog about them another time though!

The Story So Far...

So in 2003 we moved into our first house, it was great! We had a space of our own, and like any new home owner we couldn't wait to make our mark...

Here's a glimpse of what the garden was like when we moved in just over 7 years ago...

The existing garden was maintained by the gentleman next door. It was neat and tidy, but not really our cup of tea... lots of fuscia's, hundreds of daffodils and some shrubs in the corners that grew like crazy!! Still don't know what they were, we got rid of them pretty quick!

Being new of house and all, we didn't have much cash free for changing things like kitchens and bathrooms. The easiest (cheapest) option we had was the garden... I say we, really it's just me... DH has no interest in the garden at all. Since having the kids he does mow the lawn, but that's pretty much it really, so the current state of the garden is really my fault :-S Sorry Danny xxx

Any way, I formulated some garden design Ground Force style and set about digging up the existing plants, the path and marking out my plan... I can't even remember what I was gonna do now... this is pretty much as far as I got...

I thought it was brilliant and was really pleased with my progress... Looking back I appreciate the garden as it was before I dug it all up... Oh well!

Fast forward 6 years, and this is what it looks like...

The path never officially got filled in, it just grew over... The navel in the middle of the lawn is where we were going to put a rotary line. That is until we dug the hole only to descover concrete at the bottom... We're still deciding the fate of the line, do we dig another hole elsewhere in the garden? We contacted the counsil and service providers to see if the concrete is some kind of water pipe or whatever else might be lurking under the lawn, but seems we'll have to get a surveyor out to find out what it is...

We did do some work out there the year before last. I deweeded all up the right border and planted a second apple tree, a maple tree and a camelia. You can just make tham out amongst the new weeds...

We also dug up some of the patio near the house, I had some romantic notion of making a herb garden in these two beds nearest the house and growing veg at the back... Only problem being that the newly formed beds became very water logged, very quickly. The veg worked a bit though, I grew some radish, onions and potatoes in the area currently housing the paddling pool...

Around Christmas I was browsing the web, looking for solar powered Christmas lights to go on the bush by our front door... BTW, if you're thinking of being eco-friendly and getting some of these, don't bother... They were up for about a week before somebody decided to kindly remove them for us... On the plus side, they were rubbish, so no great loss, except for the £20... Anyway, while looking at these lights, I stumbled upon the idea of raised beds...

After doing a little research I decided to go with the Link-a-Bord  sets as they seemed pretty simple and very low maintenance, which is very important for me :-S Well they took less than 48 hours to arrive and I already have one of the 2x1m beds in place. Only problem is I don't have anything to put in it yet... Really need to get the compost ordered...

Fits quite nicely with my collapsable compost bin. Supposed to work 4x faster than a regular one? The main reason I wanted this one is that it seemed easier to move around if I decide I want it somewhere esle... Plus, can just fold it down and shove it in the shed if the whole veg dream fails...

I subscribed to Grow Your Own mag yesterday, with an offer of 60 plants free (aka, included in the price). Hopefully they will be okayish and will give me an idea of what I like/can grow at home.

P.S. I also hope the bed wont be walking off in the night to join my Christmas lights...

Blog 3...

Oh man 3 blogs on the go.... Think I've started a new addiction, the blogaholic :-)

Anyway, I've had this ambition for a while now to grow vegetables in the back garden... or at least maybe have a garden that has more growing in it than grass and weeds... Plus a couple of apple trees...

So here we go, it's finally begun...

I bought a compost bin on Saturday and ordered some raised beds yesterday...

Today began the war of the weeds!!

Really need to order some soil/compost to fill the beds with when they arrive and probably need to get a coldframe of some kind so that I can begin sowing seeds.