Monday 9 March 2015

Our back productive garden - late winter early spring

First of all, a warm welcome to Sue Scott from The Quince Tree.

Standing in the middle of our garden, herewith the left hand side as we enter our garden, near the terracotta square planter back left. Bed 1 with perspex on it to warm the soil a little. Also DB is in the middle of paint some canes with a white tip to indicate where the snowdrops are in the gardens. The trees on the fence are apple. The trees just in front of bed 1 with the yellow crocus are 2 pears:
The bed at the back is bed 2 and nearest the camera bed 3. The trees at the front are plum, the left back tree an apple and the right back tree a greengage. Bottom right is a small dustbin pond:
Following round to the back of the garden, the pond again, a double seat, two chimney planters that have hosta's in them plus the compost bin currently in use.
The last half of the back has compost bin 2 which will be emptied and sieved shortly. Then bin 1 will be moved into it. A cooking apple stands in the flower bed. Branches are kept down by pop socks containing gravel otherwise it grows too tall. Where the dustbin is on the back right, is water butt 4. The other 3 are around the back of the garage. The tree near the sculpture is a trained quince:
A little bit further around to the right hand side of the garden and you see the start of the fruit cage:
Back onto the patio where we sit under a very large awning, also a raised bed that used to be herbs but is now an alpine bed. In the background, our first and mainly unproductive apple tree down the left. Just around the left side of that tree is a small pear tree and also where we enter the garden:
Below under the blue wrapper is our smaller bed 4, raised on legs. Under it are two containers left from last year. One has nettle food, the other comfrey food - no doubt, they will stink when I take their lids off to see if they are still viable for this year!
There you have it. In the raised beds we grow summer salads, beetroot, spare beans and peas, spinach, leeks, potatoes, carrots, cucamelons (last year and climbing courgettes (hopefully this year) and whatever else we can squeeze in. The tomatoes and rest of the beans are grown down the driveway in front of a west facing wall just in front of the garage.

Some of the fruit trees are new and as yet, unproductive. Others give what they feel like, sometimes a lot, other years not so much. We are not too worried as they are primarily grown to hide the fences a little. Any fruit is a bonus.

So, in fruit total we have 3 pear trees, 5 eating apples and 1 cooking apple, 2 plum, 1 quince, a loganberry, a blackberry, a blackcurrant, 6 Autumn fruiting raspberries, 2 gooseberries and 2 blueberries. We gave up the strawberries last year as we found them too much of a faff in such a small garden and as I am the only one who really likes them, saw no point in keeping them going.
We gave them to our gardening neighbour R., who no doubt over the summer, will give us some of his fruit anyway.

16 comments:

  1. Your garden looks amazing ! I have built many, many raised beds over the years; the only way to go IMHO especially as you get older and cant bend or dig for long. It took me an hour to clear all my raised beds last year and put them to bed for the winter. I follow Square Foot Gardening and Lasagna Gardening (sounds funny but really works) and no digging ! You are so right about strawberries; I only grow the alpine strawberries in pots now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. Now, lasagna gardening, that does sound interesting!

      Delete
  2. thank you for a tour of your garden, it all looks so neat and tidy, a credit to you both.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. Compared to the size of yours, it is tiny! Doesn't always look so neat especially when the old weeds get going.

      Delete
  3. You've certainly squeezed a lot in to the space which is good. I have taken my strawberries and put them in a trough so I have more control over them! I started with 6 plants and planted all the runners in autumn, so I have about 20 plants now. This is our first year of growing more vegetables other than tomatoes, courgettes, chilies and lettuce we normally do. Fingers crossed we have some potatoes, broad beans, runner, beans, carrots, parsnips, broccoli and sweet corn!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We have changed the garden about six times since moving here but the best decision we made was to get rid of the lawn. DB had begun to resent it and all the turf went into the bottom of the raised beds.

      Delete
  4. hello,
    wow ....your garden looks wonderful.many beautiful plants grows in your garden. i grow a few fruit trees.
    like apple,plum and pear. in potts.
    have a nice week,
    regina

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Regina, it is lovely to grow things isn't it.

      Delete
  5. It's all looking very tidy and ready for action! We just need the weather to warm up now don't we?
    J was out digging half of the front garden yesterday afternoon and adding chicken manure ready for the potatoes going in. I think he's going to cover it too so that it warms up a bit. I must try to take some 'view' photos this week.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Like you say, just waiting for the right temperature. Might cover another bed with fleece to warm it a little as well.

      Delete
  6. Your garden is looking good... can't beat the taste of home grown :o)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you and no, you can't beat home grown.

      Delete
  7. I thought I commented on this before but blogger is not playing ball with me tonight! You garden looks so good - really productive. I swear sometimes I'd produce more on a smaller area that I intensively cultivate rather than one that I'm always chasing my tail on! The raised beds looks good and sturdy as well- I bet they'll last for years!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We hope so, they are lined inside with pond liner so should the bottom ones rot first we might be able to change them in situ. It is not as productive as it could be but I can only do so much now. I would have loved to have done what you are doing but didn't get the chance.

      Delete
    2. Yeah, I'm always thankful I can do this while I'm still young(ish). It was a struggle and we saved like mad all through our twenties (I started saving for it much younger than that really) and were lucky that the right house came along at the right time. The most luck came when I met my wife really!

      Delete
    3. Ah, you 'old' romantic you!

      Delete

I love hearing from you, will read all your comments and try and answer any questions you leave. Please leave comments in English. Don't forget to come back and read my reply! All comments are moderated so if you try to link it to a commercial web site, it will not be published.