"In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful." (~Abram L. Urban)
The Geranium flower shows the raindrops that have been falling down for most of this week. It has been a baking week, and feeding the garden birds week.Not much gardening has been done with all the deluges. I'm going back onto night shifts as well. The garden will have a few days without me. I have started to visualise the future garden. Moving the play structure debris from the path into a skip. Digging more borders around the edge of the grass. Growing Fruit Trees between the Strawberry bed and pond. Laying down stepping stones to the washing line. Putting up my Greenhouse again. I need to clear the weeds that have sprung up in the sunken border and think about moving some plants. This years spurt of growth has caused several plants to grow into each others space.. The Autumn flowering Crocus is nearly open. I hope it blooms tomorrow for the first of October. The grass needs a final trim before it stops growing, and the Spring Bulbs need to be planted. Once I have done these nights I will do all the tidying garden jobs. The Catalogues will hopefully start arriving soon to fill the dark winter days with mesmerising colourful flowers, and tasty vegetables. How fast does time seem to go?
Welsh Poppies with flowers like liquid Sunshine.They self seed all over Hilarys garden.I am always taking photographs of her garden flowers when i visit.I took these yesterday between rain showers and in the rain too. I am working today, with Tuesday given over to helping Hils clear her garden, wednesday for Allotment, Thursday is Harlow Carr again (Sixth trip since last year), and Friday for the allotment.I am working Saturday and Sunday. Thats where my photos will come from this week.
It was a grey overcast day today, with wind and rain. I was out in the dark again, planting the Honeysuckle behind the Camelia. The Lonicera has its own wig wam of canes now to grow up before leaping across to the trellis I want to put up. The Top photo shows the left border as it is. The lower photo shows the Carex grasses and the Dogwood nestling with the solar lights. A post thatI read last night before bed was the Hundred Foot Diet blogged on an Alameda Garden. http://alamedagarden.blogspot.com/2008/01/100-foot-diet-challenge.html The premise is simple. Try to prepare one meal a week with ingredients grown in your garden or community garden (Allotment here). I did a post before about the Dig for Victory campaign in the Second World War when the British public started to cultivate land en masse to grow fruit and vegetables. http://snappycrocsgarden.blogspot.com/2007/04/digging-for-victory-britains-new.html The hundred foot is the average distance from your house! You can source locally grown Organic food if your plot is bare. Thats good because I only have Parsley and Rosemary growing that is edible at the moment.
I did a google search and found this video embedded on an eco website.The garden featured belongs to Jules Dervaes , the man behind the path to freedom journal along with his family. The idea to me thats the most radical is its in an urban area. They did not move into the country, but altered their own environment. I love their Hellstrip with the Wild flowers, and the fact he dropped six inches of mulch on the lawn. Freedom from mowing and watering. This is their gardeners challenge posted on the sixth of January: http://www.pathtofreedom.com/journal/archives/2008/01/100_foot_diet_c.html I am waiting for my vegetable seeds to come from Robinsons and the African bag gardens from Send A Cow. The right hand side of the garden will be split between a Butterfly garden, and a Kitchen Garden. The raised Pavers will hold the Bag Gardens and hopefully a Grow house too. In my year without a garden I dreamt of the ideal garden. The plan for 2008 will be trying to grow a four pronged garden: 1) An organic garden that attracts wildlife, birds, animals, and insects. Natural pest control will be used, and picking them off at night. 2) A productive garden growing as much home grown food as is possible on a North east facing site. 3) A beautiful Flower garden that has interest throughout the year. 4) A place to relax, and entertain when it warms up. A people friendly garden to chill out in after the stresses of work. I have started some of the above especially attracting garden birds, lots more work to be done before it is completed. My garden measures aproximately twenty foot by fourteen foot, faces north east and is shaded by houses and trees.
