In November, the area designated for vegetable growing looked overgrown.
The above shows the garden area when we had just started to create the space: we found it was a lot larger than anticipated at first.
A few weeks ago, the raised beds were put in and a ton of compost added. The compost was bought from the local authority and came at £ 17.00 a ton. This is composted at high speed from all the green waste people take to the recycling centre and from the recycling bins collected at the kerbside; a lot cheaper than when you buy it by the bag at the garden centre.
Due to the delay in finishing the hard landscaping I have bought an instant salad garden from WigglyWigglers to make instant use of the potager which included a variety of salad plants, spring onions, celery, celeriac, beetroot and tomatoe plants. I have also planted out butternut squash and french beans.
The remaining part of the garden is still in progress but its blueprint is a food forest garden with trees, shrubs and a mixture of edible and non edible plants. Currently we have strawberries that are ripening in tubs but have had to be covered with fleece, blackcurrant and redcurrant bushes with a few berries on and 2 gooseberry bushes that show promise. As this is the first year for these plants, the harvest will be limited. Amongst the greenery there are also alpine strawberries that make a wonderful addition to our breakfast each day.
There is more opportunity to go out and potter in the garden and I am feeling a bit trimmer too. So far on the vegetarian diet my weight has dropped by 20lbs; no caffeine, no wheat, no dairy, no meat, no yeast, no sugar, no salt. Probably sounds very boring but it enables me to move forward with the possibility of eating the majority of the fruit and vegetables that are grown in the garden supplemented by natural sugars from honey, and dry staples like rice, oats,dried beans, seeds, sprouted seeds and nuts. It suits me personally but my DH needs a certain amount of meat to stay healthy.
5 comments:
Hmmm...that was a thought I noted re the Wiggly Wrigglers instant salad garden. I know about the Rocket Gardens instant food gardens - and think "Good idea - but a bit on the pricey side" - so was interested to see that. I've sent them an email requesting to know when they do these in sizes suitable for teensy backyards like mine and in varieties specified as suitable for containers. Could be an idea for me for next year methinks.
ceridwen
The garden looks fantastic - you have certainly put a lot of effort into this. I am also very impressed with your diet! I have managed to grow most of our vegetables in the garden over the last 10 months, but I have not yet discarded dairy/wheat/coffee etc. How do you manage?
What a transformation! Puts my garden to shame! (hold on... did I say garden? Weed patch, more like).
Hello -
More on the bees: In catching up on one of my magazines, it notes that June 22-28 is the 2nd Annual National Pollinator Week. Gives a point to pollinator.org -- It is North American, but may have useful broad ideas. Also gave reference to organicgardening.com for tips. Gave a statistic that "Every third bite of food we eat has been pollinated by an industrious honeybee."
We can see in our news how horrible the Midwestern flooding is for that areas' residents; we don't know yet how it all will affect all of us with regard to our food supply.
Barbara in Georgia, USA, where it is very dry.
Those raised beds look fantastic! It'll all look fab when it's finally done
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