Springtime in the garden is a time of wonder, and that usually means wondering what has survived the winter and despite labelling a bit of head scratching as we try to remember where the various perennials every year

It’s now less of a puzzle as I started photographing the garden to help keep an ongoing diary of the progress we’re making.  Although we’ve had this garden for over 30 years, its only since the boys left home that were starting to develop some of the ideas we’ve had since moving here. Its fair to say and I’m sure many gardeners with well established garden will agree, its always work in progress.

The garden is south facing and benefits from the shade of several mature trees. It’s set over three quarters of an acre and there’s a small stream runs through between the bottom of the garden and the house.

There’s also a separate vegetable garden where I grown soft fruit, herbs, edible flowers and some vegetables. We didn’t grown any vegetables over the winter and the reasonable spring weather has allowed to us to tidy up and get the beds ready for this years plants.

Looking back at the colourful images from last spring and summer gives me a great deal of satisfaction, but winter has been and once again the spades, forks and loppers are to hand as there’s much work to be done if we are create the same attractive pictures in the coming months.

Here’s a snap shot of the vegetable garden from last year.

The raised beds divide the garden into manageable chunks and over the years have provided a healthy load of vegetables for us. Sadly we lost the greenhouse to a winter storm and we’ve never replaced. I’m hoping this year will be as fruitful and I’ve already made a good start on that by planting cauliflowers and kale in one bed and some new herbs into the herbs into another.

I used to grow courgettes in the greenhouse but I find the plants prefer being outside and produce more flowers and veg.

Edible flowers bring great colour in the summer and last year I grew lots of nasturtiums, borage and calendula. These were great to use in salads and I also used some to decorate a few celebration cakes including my son and daughter in law’s wedding cake.

 Calendula

It’s a constant struggle keeping on top of the weeds on the paths as I don’t use weed killer. Over the next few weeks we’ll be tackling these by laying weed suppressant fabric and new gravel.

Every kitchen garden needs a collection of herbs and I grow as many possible including my favourites, Rosemary, a variety of thymes  and sages, several different mints, parsley and fennel. Alongside the rhubarb there’s a healthy crop of sweet cicely and both of those will be put to good use this weekend.

                                                     Sage

Chocolate Mint

This will hopefully be the first in a series of posts about the progress we make this year. Thanks for reading and pop by soon to see how the garden is changing as the weather warms up and we move further into spring.

 

There are so many great garden blogs to read and I’m linking this post to Down By the Sea blog where you can see some other fantastic gardens.