Off The Edge Gardening

I do love a nice hanging basket

Clients beware.  This is what happened to the unfortunate who suggested that I might plant Cotoneaster horizontalis in their garden.  For the sake of my dear and most sensitive readers I have shown you the silhouette only.  Some might say “harsh”, but I would say “fair”

 

At The Farm we have been working hard to reclaim the vegetable garden. To save you the trauma of our agonies over the last few months I will précis what we have achieved.  There are now two distinct planting areas.  These are rectangles of improved soil that have been released from the suffocating carpet lain many years ago and now covered in several centimetres of turf.  The lower bed has been planted with potatoes; Foremost, Wilja, Red Duke of York and Blue Danube. Courgettes will join them later.  The upper bed will be for peas, both sweet and edible, and all manner of beans and which will be supported by a trio of alternative wigwams created by Young Master George, one willow, one twisted ash, one sycamore.   Both beds are encircled by recycled paving slabs, bedded in by Slasher.

Slasher also constructed a raised bed, on a piece of uneven ground adjacent to the greenhouse. We filled it with upturned turf, relocated topsoil and added a few bags of compost for good measure.  It is to be used for salad crops and its height means it can be more easily protected from Those Who Wish Us To Fail.  The members of this non exclusive club include, but are not confined to, badgers, rabbits and of course those pesky chickens.  It has been succession sown with beetroot, spring onions, cut-and-come-again lettuce, carrots and of course radishes. Continuing with the recycling theme, we found abandoned in the bushes lengths of what I think is reinforcing steel.  This was cut to length and used as an open cloche for further protection.  But wait a moment, what is that top right, poking up between the ruler lines of emerging seedlings?

Rhubarb, that is what it is!  Foolishly (in retrospect) we built the raised bed on top of the scrappiest, saddest, specimen of rhubarb you have ever seen.  Its pathetic performance last year didn’t warrant even a single harvest.  This weakling was so obviously a spent force, doomed and definitely not a threat to straight lines.  Now it is vigorous, indomitable, chaotic.  We are all doomed.  I have cut it twice and still it continues its upward momentum.  Shows just how much I know.  Again.

Everyone is shouting “snow”,”plummeting temperatures”, “wind chill”, “Arctic conditions”.  So, in an attempt to redress the balance, I will whisper “beautiful icy-white Iberis sempervirens“.

This is Tulip “Blue Diamond”.  When I bought the bulbs at last autumn’s Malvern Show I didn’t really believe they would be blue.  But a little bit of me hoped they would be.  The little bit that would like to believe in Father Christmas or that I will win the Lottery or that George Clooney is regretting marrying that skinny maid and has come to appreciate the more padded torso.  They are blooming now and although the peony formed flowers are undoubtedly beautiful they are definitely not blue.  Or diamonds, come to think of it.

As gardeners we often spend our days looking soil-ward.  We should remember, on occasion, to tilt our heads backwards and enjoy the view.

There are ways and means.  You may not need a hammer to crack an egg, but it is very helpful to have a mini digger to get out an old root stump or ten.  I explained to Lord and Lady Mantle that all the aristo’s have stumperies these days, but they weren’t convinced.  In fact I don’t think they believe me that such a thing could exist.  A gently sloping lawn and a rose covered arbour were requested, none of that mucky modern upside down rubbish.  Very tasteful, very classy.   In the earth-moving process several more of Her Ladyship’s empty gin bottles were uncovered and a pile of old bricks, possibly the former outside privy.  Very tasteful, very classy.

ps  I don’t really mind that they don’t want a stumpery, they are quite fun though.

pps Teasing aside, Lord and Lady Mantle are classy in all the important ways eg they make good bacon butties.

ppps First one to spot Lord Mantle in the photo gets a blue smartie.  Helpful hint – he isn’t the one driving the JCB.

My friend Bobby foolishly ate a dead fish that she found on the beach.  For this reason she wasn’t feeling herself yesterday.  Then she ate the plastic pot from the cistus I had just planted. Some little dogs just wont learn.

This hairy poppy bud is sitting patiently waiting for the weather to warm.  Like me.  Except I am not quite so hairy.