Archive for March, 2010

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Introducing the girls!

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

I have 5 hens, which were an Easter present to  my family last year.  We have one each, and they are different colours so we can tell them apart, and on average they lay 4 eggs a day. My hen lays the most beautiful blue eggs, and the others lay a variety of brown shelled eggs,  and I have to say, although possibly biased, that once you produce your own eggs from home, free range eggs from the shop have never tasted or looked as amazing as my ones!  My hens graze on about an acre of grass, and it is the grass that makes the egg yolks the most stunning saffron yellow colour.  When I have some extra eggs that need using, and rather than give them away to my friends and neighbours, which I do from time to time, there are several recipes I like to make, and this one for lemon meringue tart has a feeling of Spring about it I think.

LEMON MERINGUE TART

Filling:

1 x 95g  large all-butter sweet pastry case from Marks and Spencer

4 egg yolks

1 x 397g tin condensed milk

freshly squeezed juice and zest from 4 unwaxed lemons

Topping:

4 egg whites

220g caster sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat oven to 150 C (300 F) Gas 2

Separate the eggs, and put the egg yolks, condensed milk and lemon juice and zest in a bowl and mix gently with a hand whisk or balloon whisk until all the ingredients are combined.  The mixture will thicken naturally.

Put the pastry case on a flat baking sheet, and poor the mixture into the pastry case and bake in a pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes, until the filling is firm to the touch, but still soft in the centre (not wobbly!)  Leave to cool completely, and then cover with film, and chill for a minimum of an hour, or overnight if you have time.

Whisk the egg whites in a large bowl with an electric hand whisk, until they form soft peaks.  Carefully whisk in the sugar a little at a time, and add a couple of drops of vanilla extract, and whisk again until stiff peaks form. Spoon the meringue on to the top of the cold tart, covering the lemon filling. Create peaks and swirls in the top of the meringue with the back of a table spoon.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes or until the meringue is golden brown and crisp to the touch.  leave to cool before serving.

I am just of out to  my potting shed  …  I have potatoes in there chitting but a mouse has started to nibble the new shoots off a couple, so I am going to move them indoors!  I am keen to plant out my lettuce plants but the weather is so unsettled ..  I have my stock of slug and snail deterrent on hand so that when the time is right to plant out, no one will be eating the lettuce but me!  I also have some more parsnips to dig, and I have a lovely recipe for Curried Parsnip Soup to share soon…


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Rainy old day

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

What a grey dismal day today.  Before it started to rain really heavily I managed to have a good look around the garden      ( putting the bin out).  At least the flowers were blooming brightly and all the trees and shrubs were springing into growth with acid green leaves which made me smile.  I had a quick look in the potting shed to check on the plants in there and also potted on some little grasses that I noticed growing in the gravel.  Then it was back inside to have a warm drink and my breakfast.

Dicentra

Dicentra


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Indecent exposure.

Monday, March 29th, 2010

All gardens are subject to exposure from the elements, but for some this is their single most defining feature, the thing that determines what can be grown or even if anything much can be grown at all.

Rooftop gardens must contend with both exposure and potentially unstable containers.

It might be assumed that exposure in a garden is always due to its elevation – be it on a hill-top, near the coast or on a high roof or balcony – but it can equally be about location. The funnelling effects of valleys, woodlands and (particularly in towns) buildings can mean that gardens that might at first sight appear to be fairly sheltered are actually subjected to serious battering.

In some locations exposure is seasonal or determined by the direction of the prevailing weather fronts. Our Devon valley garden is a good example of this. Surrounded on three sides by woodland, but in a westerly facing valley, for much of the time things are pretty calm and sheltered, but when the weather shifts to the west, straight off the Atlantic, then the wind is concentrated by the valley and funnelled by the surrounding woods to create powerful gusts that have uprooted some medium sized trees and smashed the tops from others.

This happens here pretty much every Autumn, so it’s a seasonally exposed location, but of course others suffer that kind of effect all year round and the common factor that has to be addressed in all cases is the wind.

Bamboo used as a windbreak.

Wind in a garden can cause damage in a variety of ways. Structural damage can occur to garden features and buildings (greenhouses, sheds etc.) as well as to plants.

Trees and shrubs in full leaf have a huge “sail effect” and can be seriously damaged or even killed outright by strong gusts, whilst herbaceous beds can be flattened in a matter of moments with often heartbreaking results. Exposure is also a particular problem for fruit and vegetable plants. Flowers can easily be damaged, burned or torn right away before they’ve been pollinated so no fruit can form.

Wind breaks.

Wind permeable fence.

Solid fences may seem like the first solution to keeping wind out of a garden (particularly a small-ish one) but actually all that they do it to funnel and concentrate the wind, sometimes making a bad problem even worse. A better solution is to filter the wind to dissipate its destructive energy before it can reach your precious plants.

Where space allows trees and evergreen bushes planted at the garden margins and in staggered succession (rather than in large solid blocks) are the very best solution. We use large bamboos that grow quickly and are infinitely flexible, allowing them to easily absorb all the energy without risk of being damaged themselves. In smaller spaces open slat fences and permeable plastic mesh  netting can perform exactly the same job.

Planting care.

Low staking to stabilise a young tree.

Wind rock – where trees and shrubs are moved at the base of the trunk and at the root – can case major long-term damage, and often death of a plant. Trunks are weakened, roots torn away and large, drying air pockets formed underground, all pretty serious. It’s crucial to stake plants adequately when planting to prevent the process of wind rock from ever starting.

Stakes should always be low or the stem/trunk will fail to thicken up properly, causing further long-term weakness and lack of stability. Soil should be well firmed in, although take care not to compress and solidify, particularly with clay soils. Roots need access to air and water rather than being entombed into a giant brick. Containers should be very substantial and/or secured to surrounding fencing, wells etc.

Don’t neglect watering, not just at planting time, but for a good period (generally 2 to 3 years) afterwards too. Exposed gardens are subject to huge evaporation and water loss comes from plant leaves as well as from the soil, so it will be up to you to compensate. Installing an automatic plant watering system might be a useful option too.

Finally, you can expand the selection of plants that will succeed with some judicious pruning. Obviously taller plants will be subject to more exposure and damage, so, where appropriate for the plant, it makes sense to keep things low and compact.

Plant choices.

Although there are various strategies for dealing with exposure, and improving your site to widen the scope of plants that you can grow, it’s equally important to come to terms with your gardens limitations.

A highly exposed, but highly attractive coastal garden.

There aren’t many natural environments that plants haven’t successfully colonised, and by drawing inspiration from nature you can create wonderfully rich and abundant gardens full of plants that have evolved to thrive under the very conditions that would otherwise be struggling with.

The first port of call is the coast, where plants cope with maximum exposure all year round. Plants that naturally occur in coastal situations will always work well in any exposed spot, but it’s also well worth visiting coastal gardens to check out what is already succeeding for others.  Many Mediterranean plants also work well as they have evolved all sorts of strategies to minimise water loss, including small, silvery, waxy or furry leaves and compact growth for instance.

As with any garden, it’s always better to grow plants that are actually naturally happy to be in your type of location rather than choose those that will struggle to survive and create a succession of cultivation problems for you.


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Hidden spring gems.

Friday, March 26th, 2010

Once upon a time pretty much all of the Northern Hemisphere was covered by forest. Most of this was deciduous forest, which meant that in early spring the forest floor was bright and light beneath the still leaf-less canopy above. And so it was that over vast stretches of time, and all around the globe, a truly enormous diversity of small plants evolved to exploit this window of flowering opportunity.

Deinanthe caerulea.

These, then, are the hidden spring gems. Plants that will reproduce later in the year, safe beneath their giant leafy over-head protectors, but which burst into sudden and often simultaneous flower in spring time.

The number of forms and varieties of these spring gems is pretty mind boggling, and more or less all of them are garden worthy when sited correctly.

I’m going to blog in more detail about a couple of specific genera next month, but, to wet your appetite, here are a ten of my favourites that you just might not have come across before.

Scoliopus

Scoliopus bigelowii.

I really can’t resist starting with these little guys as S. bigelowii is a plant that I’ve previously cited as my very favourite – always an impossible choice though.

Native to the forest floors of the Western American seaboard, with particular strongholds in Oregon, the two species of Scoliopus were long considered to be closely related to Trilliums, but new genetic studies have relocated them into the huge Lily family.

Scolipus emerge very early in the year, often in January, and always by Feb., and start by producing a pair of leopard-spotted, glossy leaves (closely resembling many British orchids) between which comes the little flowering stem. It’s these flowers that have always fascinated and intrigued me. They consist of 3 tri-partite elements – 3 filamenous petals, 3 much larger sepals, 3 stamens and a 3-chambered ovary.

They are miniature architectural wonders that demand close inspection so early in the year. Scoliopus are absolutely bone hardy and enjoy moist, shady conditions – watch out for slugs though!

Uvularia

Uvularia grandiflora.

Another small genus of North American natives, the uvularias are airy beauties, with hanging, bell-shaped flowers in a variety of shades of yellow.

Easily grown in any woodland-ish spot, they will slowly clump-up to form a very pleasing feature.

U. grandiflora is the most frequently seen and (as the name suggests) also has the largest flowers, with lovely twisting petals of pale yellow.

The pretty, but much less robust U. sessilifolia is smaller in all respects with solid, elongated bell shaped flowers of primrose.

Glaucidium

Glaucidium palmatum.

G. palmatum (the only species in the genus) is a Japanese woodlander that has become known to western gardeners as both a bit of a legend as well as a mystery.

The legend part is due to the plants’ ethereal beauty, with robust clumps of maple-shaped foliage giving rise to large flowers of lavender blue with silken textured petals.

The mystery is to do with the plants’ true identity. Is it a form of Peony, a member of the Buttercup family or maybe a poppy?

Botanists are still unsure but gardeners, at least, don’t have to be too concerned and can simply enjoy it’s beauty.

Jeffersonia

Named after US president Thomas Jefferson, the two species of Jeffersonia are amongst the most delicate, ephemeral and aristocratic of all spring flowering woodland plants. The elegant leaves of North American J. diphylla emerge paired, and clasped together like hands in prayer, before unfolding like the wings of some exotic jade green butterfly. The exquisite, pure white cup-shaped flowers rise above the foliage and always charm everyone who sees them. J. dubia represents the genus in China, and has equally attractive, near-circular  foliage and flowers of the palest blue.

Kirengeshoma

Kirengeshoma palmata.

K. palmata is without doubt one of the finest as well as one the most easily grown of all the woodland herbaceous plants, and really should be in every garden that has any shady area (that would be pretty much every single garden surely?!)

The Japanese native has stems that can rise to 6 feet (although mine stubbornly peak at around half that) clothed with deep green, jagged-toothed Maple-shaped leaves and topped with cascading clusters of creamy-yellow flowers.

It really is a head-turner at all stages of growth in the garden.

Deinanthe

Kirengeshomas are rather improbable herbaceous members of the Hydrangea family, and that’s also the home to the two species of Deinanthe.The plants have handsome foliage but their principle appeal comes from the clusters of cup-shaped flowers of the very palest lavender. Not widely seen in cultivation – mostly because they are very slow to reproduce by division – deinanthes are actually pretty tough little customers, and easily accommodated in a shady garden spot.

Dodecatheon

Dodecatheon meadia.

Commonly known (along with maybe a dozen or more other plants…) as “shooting stars”, Dodecatheon meadia is a really superb little primrose relative native to a wide swathe of the southern states of the US.

At first forward-facing, the pure white petals perform a 180 degree rotation as they open, to create a wonderful contrasting display alongside the gold and blood-red centres of the flowers.

I grow the plants alongside hellebores and other woodland marginals, where clumps happily increase year on year without any special treatment.

Anemonopsis

Anemonopsis macrophylla.

There are a really large number of Anemone relatives that excel as garden plants but if I had to plump for just one it would have be the Japanese A. macrophylla.

Plants produce large mounds of large (as the name suggests) heavily divided, ferny foliage which are pretty enough in themselves, but bursting from the midst of these leaves come jet black flowering stems.

These are stiffy upright and rise way above the foliage to display a galaxy of airy little flowers, each a miniature marvel in white with different degrees of purple staining.

Saruma

Saruma henryi.

A fairly recent introduction into Western cultivation, the Chinese Saruma henryi – the only species in the genus – is a close relative of the highly desirable Asarums (aka wild gingers).

I’d have to say it’s a pretty unique garden plant – I’ve certainly never come across anything quite like it.

The foliage is perfectly heart-shaped and densely furry and emerges a deep purple – all highly appealing – whilst the crinkly, mid-yellow flowers that tip on top superficially resemble small wild roses. Sarumas are, like most of these plants, very hardy and pretty straightforward to grow in a woodland or pseudo-woodland garden spot.

Scopolia

Scopolia carniolica.

Black or near black flowered garden plants are always highly sought after, and Scopolia carniolica is certainly no exception.

An ornamental member of the Nightshade family (from whence come potatoes and tomatoes as well as our hedgerow native Deadly Nightshade) this little beauty hails from eastern Europe.

Emerging in early spring the leafy shoots soon give bear pendulous, bell-shaped flowers of intense, metallic deep violet-black.

There is also an extremely rare yellow-flowering form, but, to my mind at least, this can’t match the sinister charms of it’s dark-flowered sister.


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Spring flowers

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

That’s the exciting thing about owning a new garden you never know what is going to pop up next.  Yesterday I was looking at the borders and noticed these early tulips in full flower.

Early tulips

Early tulips

A little further on these pretty little daffodils tete a tete I think have all opened and are flowering their socks off.

Little dafs

Little dafs

I can’t wait to see what else is growing.  With the warmer dry weather and now the rain to water everything all sorts of plants are springing into life.  I think I have already spotted the leaves of blue bells, grape hyacinth,  ordinary hyacinth and some very grass like leaves that I don’t recognise.  So watch this space for more spring flowers.


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Micro gardens.

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

The phrase “micro gardening” has recently been coined in the States to refer specifically to small urban spaces that are used to grow your own food in containers. Well, I’m stealing/appropriating that phrase and enlarging it to refer to gardening of any variety, when undertaken in a teeny-tiny space.

A small but smart balcony garden.

One of the great things about the upsurge in interest in gardening as a key leisure pursuit for just about every man woman and child in the country is that people who didn’t previously have a garden of any description are now looking to green whatever spaces they do have, no matter how small.

As well as allowing the satisfaction of growing your own food (quite possibly for the first ever time) pressing small spaces into garden action also provides a creative outlet for many.  From balconies to yards to miniature rooftop spaces, where there’s a will there’s most definitely a way, but there are also a few basic principles that might help you to make the most those itsy bitsy spaces.

Space.

A sculpture makes for an excellent focal point.

Whether you’re starting from scratch and converting a previously unused area into a mini garden or re-jigging and adding to an existing green area, space, and how you use is your most important consideration.

When space is at a premium you might think that the best approach is to make use of every inch and fill all nooks and crannies with plants.

When done with extreme care and planning this can create a kind of all-enveloping cosy feel. More often than not it ends up as a jumbled crush where the plants are competing for light, water and your attention, and where the eye has no guiding lines or focal points.

The sheer number of plants does not cause this feeling of busyness and confusion though, it’s brought about by clashes of varieties, colours & shapes. In many ways the smaller the space the more important it is to give forethought to design or at least the themes of the garden.

Decide at the outset what function(s) you want the garden to perform (recreation, relaxation, distraction, food production are just a few) and the broad look that you would like, and then stick closely to it.

Using a tree as a central feature.

There are a few specific tricks that can help to make a small garden look bigger. Dividing the space up, particularly with a central barrier (an arch, pergola, large shrub, level change or small tree perhaps) will prevent the whole area being seen at once – a very good approach where space allows.

It’s also best to avoid too many straight lines, they simply encourage the eye to run quickly from one end to the other and will make a small space seem even tinier.

The crafty use of large wall mounted mirrors can bring an immediate feeling of space as well as boosting light levels.

A mirror can really open up space and light.

Cannily placed decorative objects, lights and particularly things that make a sound (water, wood, metal) can also give an added sense of depth.

Finally, in a small space it’s vitally important to make use of all the height of your garden.

It’s easy to take a bird-eye view and only consider the flat ground plan, but that’s not how you ever see or use a garden, and the walls and overhead/canopy zones can be pressed into use without even touching upon the usable space in between.

Scale.

Materials and plantings harmonious and coordinated.

Possibly the biggest mistake that many gardeners make when tackling a small space is to miniaturise everything.

The exclusive use of small plants, containers and furnishings will not make a space look larger; on the contrary, they will simply enhance the sense of the tiny.

It’s important to remember that the walls, houses, fences, boundaries and structures that surround a garden are also (visually at least) part of that garden, and will tend to dwarf a collection of tiny plants and objects, making everything seem out of proportion.

Much better to use less/fewer of everything, but to choose things that are both regular in size and harmonious with one another.

Some of the very best micro gardens have only a small number of objects in them , but each is artfully placed and together they create a feeling of completeness, rather than clutter.

Colour.

Foliage colour to the fore.

The same principles apply to the use of colour, but even more so. If you’re going for flowering plants choose a limited palette of colours and try to consider flowering times and colour combinations. Cool colours – blues, whites, greens – tend to enhance space whilst hot colours reduce it, but the most important factor is that colours harmonise rather than clash.

Choose two or three colours at most and try not to deviate from them. It can also be much more fun exploring the limits and possibilities of a fixed set of options rather than simply growing everything that catches your eye.

Foliage, rather than flower colour, is actually likely to be the most important planted element in a small garden, and the wide array of available textures, shapes and fragrances, as well as foliage colour possibilities, can be explored to the full.

Hard landscaping.

Walls form a vital planting surface.

The term hard landscaping refers to everything in a garden that isn’t a plant. In a micro garden that might simply be a pot or two, but it could equally be a floor surface or pathway, furniture, wall decorations, steps, raised beds, stones, and many others.

In all cases the same basic principles of simplicity and harmony should be applied.

To avoid a jumbled, messy confusion choose as few different materials as possible, make sure that they work well together, and try to repeat them where possible – if you have a wood deck surface consider matching wooden planters, trellis and furniture for example. Simplicity, harmony and repetition of materials & colours will do wonders to open up a micro garden.


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Another battle with ground elder

Sunday, March 21st, 2010
Ground Elder

Ground Elder

I decided that it was such a lovely day today,  after an energizing walk on the beach I decided to tackle another batch of ground elder.  The soil conditions were perfect  after all the rain we have had and it was easier to dig and pull out the roots making sure not to drop any little bits.  I like to have a trug close by to put the roots and leaves in so that I can keep then separate, then I burn them.  I know that I will have to weed this  border again  but each time I get out some  of the ground elder I weaken the plant and hopefully it will slowly die off.


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Hooray for hellebores.

Friday, March 19th, 2010

Some of the colours of the hellebore rainbow.

There’s no doubt that hellebores are pretty special garden plants.

Flowering at the tail end of winter, with only snowdrops and the occasional early Iris, Cyclamen and Crocus for company, these improbable members of the buttercup family never fail to inspire as they push up their multicoloured flowers and divided leaves through snow or ice, or whatever the winter weather has to throw at them.

Emerging so much earlier than most other spring-flowering plants hellebores would probably command attention even if they were small and weakly coloured.

Apricot with dark nectaries.

Thanks to generations of dedicated enthusiasts, there’s not much chance of that, and these perennials now pack a truly dramatic punch with large cup-shaped flowers in a kaleidoscope of colours from vivid green and pure white through yellow to apricot, pinks & purples and on to the most intense slate blues and deepest violet blacks.

Flower shapes vary from very rounded and cup shaped, to starry with a range of different shaped doubles. Some also have dark red or black-ish nectaries, which gives a different look altogether.

As if that range weren’t enough the flowers of many forms also come with a multitude of different markings. These have evolved to guide pollinating insects safely and accurately towards the reproductive organs of the flowers, but luckily for us it’s not just the eyes of passing bees that are dazzled by the endless different combinations of spots, blotches and lines.

A bit of Botany.

Near black - both flowers and foliage.

Before going any further I need to qualify exactly which hellebores I’m referring to. Helleborus is a small genus of around 15 species, all but one of which are native to Europe. H. foetidus (the rather unkindly named Stinking Hellebore) is actually a British native, but the large majority hail from central southern and eastern Europe, with particular strongholds in scrubby mountainous regions of the Balkans.

The only non-European species is the beautiful H. thibetanus, which, you won’t be surprised to hear, is a native of Tibet.

H. niger (the so-called Christmas Rose) and H. argutifolius are both very well known garden plants, but the large-flowered, multi-coloured garden hellebores are all very complex, multi-species hybrids based in part of the species H. orientalis.

Double white spotted.

Strictly speaking these should be called H. x  hybridus, but in reality hardly anyone used this name.

As a group the plants have widely and pretty consistently come to be known as the Orientalis Hybrids (as well as picking up the unfortunate and totally misleading moniker Lenten Rose)….having said that for simplicities sake I’m going to continue referring to them here simply as hellebores.

Cultivation.

Reverse picotee white spotted.

One of the other great appeals of hellebores is that they really are incredibly easy, tolerant and rewarding plants to grow.

In their wild habitats the species invariably live on slightly alkaline, rocky and generally pretty impoverished soils.

In cultivation they will happily grow in virtually anything you care to give them, although they will of course grow better and certainly provide a better flowering display if they have something halfway decent to sink their roots into.

Hellebores are essentially plants of open, light woodland, so a good, organic-rich soil with a free draining structure will give optimum results. They are also partial to a good feed, and though far from essential, a heavy mulch with well rotted manure in late autumn will see the plants respond with extra lush and large growth the following spring.

Green streaked picotee.

Despite their woodland origins hellebores are actually very sun tolerant and can be grown in a really wide array of garden positions, including that most difficult of all situations – dry shade.

In many ways, though, they both grow and look their best when integrated into a shady or woodland border situation, which of course also closely mirrors the habitats of the wild species.

Ongoing care.

Hellebores are evergreen, with flowers emerging before the foliage and on separate new stems.

The main care involved in growing them in the garden revolves around what to do with the previous years foliage. Many gardeners simply do nothing and leave the whole plants intact year round. There is something to be said for this since the old foliage will certainly help protect the soft new stems as they emerge in winter.

New spring flower stems.

However, those old stems and leaves can also act as snail hotels as well as potentially harbouring various fungal diseases, so the alternative approach is to cut all the previous years foliage and stems right back to ground level in mid winter.

This has the added advantage of allowing the new flowering stems to be displayed to their fullest, without last years raggedly, blotched old leaves marring their pristine beauty.

Propagation.

It is possible, with much care and patience, to divide large plants in order to propagate from highly desirable individual clones. In practice though, hardly anyone fiddles around dividing their hellebores, because they are one of the easiest and most reliable garden plants to grow from seed.

A selection of yellows.

Actually, if you leave the seed heads to develop and ripen on the plants then you’re pretty much guaranteed to find a little crop of satellite babies sprouting around their parent the following spring.

It’s great fun, and really very easy to hand pollinate your favourite coloured plants with one another to see what new colours and patterns result, but simply gathering the copious seed that naturally develops will do the job as well.

Although it is released by the plants in late spring and takes around 9 months to germinate – naturally timed to sprout as the same time that the adult plants come into growth – hellebore seed does not store well and quickly looses viability. It’s simple enough to deal with though, and should be sown as soon as possible after harvesting.

No special treatment is needed although the seed does require winter stratification to stimulate germination, so, after sowing the pots/trays etc. should always be kept outside to experience the winter cold.

Pest and Diseases.

Red picotee with dark nectaries.

Again, these are thankfully few and far between. Slugs and snails will attack young shoots but once the leaves have matured they are far too tough to be appealing to any mollusc. Aphids can likewise congregate on new growth and if not removed will lead to distorted and damaged foliage and flowers.

More importantly aphids are also suspected as the agents responsible for passing on Hellebore Black Death – an all too common viral disease that leads to large black streaks and distortion in the foliage, stems and flowers of hellebores.

A much less serious but also quite widespread problem is Black Spot, a fungal disease that causes “dead” brown blotches to appear on the foliage. Removal of old foliage and good general garden hygiene will greatly reduce the occurrence of this and indeed any other fungal problems.


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Job for today

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

A job I felt I must get out and do today was to cut down the dogwoods in the garden.  These plants give such vibrant winter colour and if they are cut down around now bright fresh new growth will be assured for next year.  I also popped a few of the prunings into an out of the way place in the garden to let them take root and make new plants.  As I was walking around the garden I noticed how dry the pots were so I spent a very happy half an hour watering  pots and dead heading the  early spring flowers. I am pleased at the way the water spikes are working in the green house and I haven’t had to do much other than fill them up occasionally. While wandering around the garden I also found a big hole coming under our fence and realised that the badger has found a new way into the garden.  This could be a problem in the future when the vegetable garden gets going because  he has started to dig some of the borders. Although thankfully there is not too much damage, he has actually helped a bit by unearthing the ground elder roots and making it easier for me to weed them out.  I know this weed is prevalent in this garden and I am going to have to keep on top of it if I don’t want it to take over any more than it has already.  I think that I heard you could eat it, so any recipes would be gratefully received.

A bunch of Dogwood stems

A bunch of Dogwood stems


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Veg garden update

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

The vegetable garden is beginning to take shape.  We had some spare  time today in the sun shine to mark out  the beds and pathways with wood edges and move some more of the rubble and rubbish out of the way.  We also have to keep watering the new hedge as it has been so dry this week.  Hopefully we will get some more time during this week to carry on the good work as I can’t wait to get planting.

The new veg garden

The new veg garden


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