The Growing Garden
Rooted in Nature, Music and Walks Through Many Gardens
And there are our potatoes sitting in their egg boxes in which they have been ‘chitted’ for the last few weeks in my kitchen. Chitting is pre-sprouting your tubers in the warm before planting them which, theoretically at least, can give them a head start. We were extremely lucky with the weather yesterday, getting the …
We were delighted to have two families join us yesterday for a tidy up, a bit of Christmas cheer and an update on our FUNDING DRIVE FOR THE URBAN FOREST TRIBE! You will remember that Paula and the Tribe got accepted into the AVIVA MATCHED FUND to raise money for their new Outdoor Learning and …
We were back in the Growing Garden last Monday ready to finish all our clearing and planting – and harvest the remaining apples on our Bramley apple tree. Here is our chief apple picker hard at work. And here is chief apple picker’s mum Jacqueline… ….who not only put in a good shift on planting …
We have had a very busy couple of weeks in the growing garden. It started with our digging team preparing our new vegetable bed, edging it with old bricks and digging in lots of manure. However, first they had to dig out those triffid-like courgettes (or whatever they were) which were taking over the space. …
We are positively weighed down – if deliciously – by ripe tomatoes coming from our tomato plants – not to mention the cooking apples from the tree in the main garden. And now the beans are in full flow! Meanwhile the squash (or are they courgettes?) are obviously on something pretty powerful as they are …
Things had got a bit out of hand in the planters – as you may have noticed in our last post. In fact they had got out of hand in the new pergola planter and on the pathway down to the garden too, the recent bursts of rain having encouraged the grass and the bindweed …
How is that for a fine crop of beetroots and baby carrots? The last of them pulled this morning after we has tested them out last week. Also harvested this morning were radish leaves – but alas only tokens of radishes! This was our second radish sowing and I suspect we may have overwatered them …
Here is the Growing Garden on the morning of our big opening on June 22nd, positively glowing in the early morning sun. Sun which was to be very good to us all day, popping in and out but always accompanied by a pleasant cooling breeze so it was never too hot either for our flowers …
Yes, things certainly moved on last week! Here are Steve and Stephen fixing our new pergola, created out the off cuts of wood left by the builders, and complete with another huge planter. We are planning to grow a vine up and over the pergola and I am not sure whether to put its feet …
The last time you saw this planter, Sue was pricking out tiny chard seedlings on the right and setting radish, rocket and lettuce seeds. Now look at it! And this picture was taken several days ago. All of those little plants are now significantly bigger – so significantly much bigger that on Monday I am …
We were delighted to have a visit ten days ago from Ecologist Michael all ready to help us plant out our first seeds in our new raised beds! The seeds had come from Garden Therapist Shey (see her at Keep Calm Garden ) – thank you Shey – and initially we used the beetroot and …
You will remember that we left the planters last week all ready to be preserved with some creosote (Stephen’s first job when they arrived). Then they would be ready for a good layer of rubble in the bottom of each. This very satisfactorily got rid of all the broken brick and stone lying around the …
First thing this Friday morning Steve and Stephen were on site coming to grips with the large pile of scaffolding boards that had been delivered earlier in the week. The idea was to make progress on our planters so that they could be positioned and filled first with rubble and then with soil. Once that …
A happy new year to all – and welcome to Phase 1 of the Growing Garden project…. (If you are new to the project, click back to our first post to see how we got here.) So – here we are, on a rather grey day just before Christmas – the full digging team! The …
