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Garden Diary – Do you love anyone enough to share your first Strawberry?
The strawberries started to turn this week, which is always a sign that summer is arriving. There’s usually just one that ripens first and we always share it, so how appropriate that this year it was in the shape of a heart 🫶❤️ Ah… My blue Dutch Iris in the border came out earlier in the week, I planted the bulbs years ago and they just come up reliably every year. The yellow flag iris in the pond also started to bloom and the bees couldn’t get enough of either variety, I love how they disappear right inside. I get such enormous pleasure watching them and all the other pollinators…
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Garden Diary – I thought the tulips were over, then 2 princess’s came along
It’s been an amazing tulip year, thanks to the weather playing ball for a change. But all good things come to an end, at least I thought. Just as I was feeling a bit sad the season was nearly over I found a pot hidden behind some larger pots and it was full of little orange tulips called ‘Little Princess’, what a lovely surprise! Then in the woodland border I found a couple of ‘Princess Irene’ tulips had popped up. So the princess’s were making a fashionably late arrival. The garden continues to produce sentimental blooms, coming from the dicentra which I took a cutting from an elderly friend donkeys…
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Garden Diary – Moving from early spring into late spring
The grey cooler weather last week did at least allow me to get some gardening jobs done, and the rain was extremely welcome for the dry borders. I managed to get the dolly tubs planted, with Begonias in the middle, and around the outside, Anemones that I’d started off earlier in the year together with Mexican Fleabane that just keeps spreading… They’ll take a few weeks to really get going but it will be worth the wait. I finally got some of the raised vegetable beds weeded, with help from the under gardener. The red onions were planted last autumn and are now growing well with the warm weather. As…
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Garden Diary – Cherry blossom means, fruit’s on the way!
This is the week when the apple and cherry blossom came out fully. Even more exciting though, I planted the tomatoes in the greenhouse! I love that day, but obviously not quite as much as the day the first fruit ripens… Even more tulip varieties started to bloom and the foliage is bushing up in the borders full of the promise of what’s to come. It’s hard not to think of spring as the best season of all, as the garden literally comes back to life. Including a pieris shrub that we thought we may have killed by moving it, but hey presto, it’s survived! Talking of which, the tadpoles…
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Garden Diary – The white borders turned into a white garden!
When I started Monday off with a photo from one of the white borders down in the white garden, little did I know just how white the whole garden would be by Tuesday morning! Yes I know the weather forecast said snow, but the last time I looked it had changed it’s mind to sleet. And when was the last time we had that much snow in November? Let’s face it, it’s been a very strange weather year all together! The garden has certainly had a good watering this year. I’m expecting great things from the trees and shrubs next year. I’ve always found they’ve been better after a wet…
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Garden Diary – A Week of Highs and Lows
It’s been a week of highs and lows both for me and the garden. Those of you that have been following my garden journey over the last few years will know that “I hate autumn” at the best of times so this year was never going to be good. I started the week on such a high, nine weeks after falling and fracturing my back I was finally ready for physiotherapy. He was very pleased with my progress and made me feel like I should ‘go to the top of the class’. This gave me the green light to, get back to work, which always makes you feel normal again.…
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Garden Diary – Started in the pink, ended with thunder bolts!
What a week of contrasts! After last Sundays big downpour we actually had a good week with plenty of sunshine, but Saturday was the loudest thunder I’ve heard in a very long time. And some poor soul not far from here had their house set on fire by a thunder bolt! I’m pleased to say no one was hurt but the poor lady escaped just with the clothes she was wearing! It’s hard to imagine loosing all of your possessions. I’ve always said that after saving the ‘acting head-gardener’ and the cats, it’s my photographs that I’d want to save. I feel most other things are replaceable. Before the storm…
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Garden Diary – Tomato bonanza, there’s even enough for soup!
It’s the peak of the tomato season and those of you that have followed the gardens progress will know my dream before moving here was to grow enough tomatoes to make soup. Well this years tomato bonanza is certainly providing enough for soup, sauce, salad and anything else we can think of that uses tomatoes. The raspberries are starting to ramp up and we’ve had another first of the season with the first ripe pear. My hand was dripping with pear juice as I peeled it ready to share. I think the acting head gardener has eared the right to share the first one! It was a pretty good weather…
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Garden Diary – Alfresco cooking with aliens lurking
With the beans up to full production now, the ‘acting head-gardener’ has been making lots of bean curry (half a freezer full!). And as the weathers been reasonable he’s taken the portable hob outside for some alfresco cooking. I’ll bet the neighbours thought it was an interesting smelling barbeque lol. At this time of year the garden can provide breakfast, lunch and dinner, and quite often does. With various fruits starting the day, tomatoes and cucumbers or soup at lunchtime, then plenty of veg to make dinner. The plums were finally ripe this week, and despite not being that many they were incredibly delicious and as you can imagine, didn’t…
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Garden Diary – Insects and harvests
So just like in lockdown the garden and the weather are helping to keep my sanity as I struggle doing nothing whilst my back fractures heal themselves.Ironically I have spent rather a lot of time sitting and lying on the hammock I tripped backwards over, that put me in this situation! As the pain has lessened and I’ve been able to concentrate again, I’ve rediscovered the joy of reading. So catching up with the last three Brunetti books by Donna Leon, I’m transported to Venice where her books are set, whilst sitting in the sunshine with bees, butterflies and mating ladybirds – finally more numerous – flying around me. Trying…
