A good form of clutter: the garden

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A good form of clutter: the garden

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Started 1 year ago by badkitti
Latest reply from pkilmain
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badkitti
Member

With the new rental house came a traditional UK grass lawned garden.

Now, its not in ther best site (its very sheltered and doesn't get much sun, and there are fir tree all the way round) but I am still feeling slightly smug over the, admittedly limited, amount of veg I have grown this year.

Radishes seem to grow so well, lots of salad leaves, tomatoes, courgettes etc. I them was able to pickle, and used the hoarded clutter of jars to make jam using two carriers of apples a friend gave me from their 'garden clutter'.

Anyone else benefiting from their gardens this year?

Posted 1 year ago #
pkilmain
Member

Always! I have a year's worth of broccoli frozen, along with spinach, swiss chard, peas, raspberries and strawberries. DH has frozen red and black currents, which will become jam later on. We're eating tomatoes with every meal right now. LOL Plus I have root-cellared beets, carrots, red cabbage and zucchini (marrow) - short term on the last. We ate a lot of home grown lettuce this summer until the slugs got ahead of us. Just dug up the last of the slug-ridden stuff yesterday and disposed of it far far away from the garden/compost. Hate those nasty slimy things - ewwww.

Posted 1 year ago #
chacha1
Member

ENVY. I only have a patio container garden. On the north side of the building. ... At least I get hummingbirds visiting.

pkilmain ... I've read that a couple of ducks will take care of those slugs for you. :-)

Posted 1 year ago #
badkitti
Member

Chacha - mine is a north facing garden, the front garden is south facing, but I doubt if the landlord, and snooty neighbours would like me to turn it into a veg garden. If it were my house (and the neighbours weren't so bad) I have transformed the front garden ready for veggies.

A lot of my stuff was grown in tubs due to the poor conditions - pots can be placed in the few sunny areas.

Pkilmain, wow! I aim for your levels!

Posted 1 year ago #
Rosa
Member

I just threw up my hands and gave up this year - i stuck in some tomato plants I was given, but the squirrels ate them. We grew peas early in the year, and I always have buckets of greens, but a visiting toddler picked every single green cherry tomato off my one plant, and right now the squirrels are eating the potatos my preschooler planted.

Raw potatos! I thought they were poisonous.

Anyway, it's awesome you've been so successful :) Gardening is fun, even when it fails.

Posted 1 year ago #
pkilmain
Member

@Rosa - one can only hope the potatoes will poison the squirrels! LOL We have lost whole gardens several times to moose. Here you absolutely must fence your veg garden, with quite sturdy fencing. Ours does not start at the ground as we are luckily not pestered with hares/rabbits, but it goes up to 6 feet as moose as you may know are huge.

Hmmm, tried to post a photo but I guess I don't have that down...

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h59/pkilmain/100_1162.jpg

Posted 1 year ago #
badkitti
Member

Wow, and I thought we had problems keeping the birds off the strawberries!

Posted 1 year ago #
lottielot
Member

lol, was just thinking that pigeons aren't much of a challenge compared with moose! Although I did have to plant THREE lots of sweetcorn this year before it stopped being eaten by something.
This year I have a freezer full of black and red currants and raspberries, plus have made 5 jars of jam as well. Chutney is planned for tomorrow hopefully, to use up some of the marrow-courgettes, tomatoes and runner beans we have. And I have some sweetcorn in the freezer despite the critters who ate most of the seeds.

Posted 1 year ago #
Rosa
Member

WOW Pkilman!

Posted 1 year ago #
HelofaMess
Member

We had a total fail this year. We moved into a new (rental) house and put in a garden. Sadly my usually very green fingered husband put the plot in a very shady spot plus we planted too late as we had traveled during the best time plus the only soil improver we could get was WAY too strong (we're on straight clay) and probably burned the seeds plus we must have some kind bug in the garden that has eaten EVERYTHING including the grass. Oh and the estate gardeners told us that there are no bees here therefor no pollination of flowers. They just told us so this year we got a lot of flowers on the plants that did grow but no crops) Short story is after all the planting (beans, beets, corn, tomato, carrots etc) we only had one plant that grew to flower (courgette) but no crop and one edible plant (lettuce). The rest died as seedlings. *sigh*. Next year we'll do things very differently!

Posted 1 year ago #
djk
Member

oh, I am a bit jealous of those with gardens!
HOWEVER I am delighted that I faced the neighbourly snit and put herb pots in the common courtyard.

Posted 1 year ago #
bandicoot
Member

i've got enough raised vegetable beds to go into business and i pay a gardener for a full day each week.
there is no way i would keep up with it, plus i suck at gardening.
but i adore having buckets of beans and pumpkins and papayas and lettuces and chillies and mizuna and rocket and spinach and button squash and zucchini and scallions and lots of different kinds of asian vegetables to cook and to give away.
i absolutely have to have fresh herbs by the handful and our climate suits a lot of those, pretty much year round.
m citrus trees are just over a 18 months old and some are fruiting already.
i've got passionfruit by the kilo twice a year.
i've got a banana tree for the first time this year.
and avocados.
our climate is perfect for turmeric and kang kung ( a kind of very nutritious asian water spinach which is delicious).
my first monstera deliciosa is ripening right now.

my vegetable garden is manically excessive for two people, but we do like to give stuff to friends and family.
it is kinda clutter-y, but it is good clutter.

Posted 1 year ago #
pkilmain
Member

Oh, I "hire" a gardener too - he's called husband! :) Really he does the majority of the work. I mostly harvest and preserve.

Posted 1 year ago #

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