Let’s try again….

Well, I’ve been a poor blogger.

In short …….I took a bit of a step back in 2015 and only made Wordless Wednesday posts.

I felt I needed to reassess what I was trying to achieve with this blog, and what I really wanted to say.

I’ve also been extremely busy most weekends over the year with an huge amount of DIY and decorating done to the house, in short the non-gardener and I have lived here years and not touched the decorating once… And believe me, it needed touching!

In order to keep costs down, I’ve done most of the prep work and junk disposal before tradesmen moved in and got started.

The horror under the wallpaper….

Walls in 3 rooms and the hall, stairs and landing have been stripped of wallpaper, tradesmen plaster boarded ceilings, skimmed walls, a painter was employed to paint our new smooth walls… We disposed of most of our old, mismatched furniture, carpets were replaced,

new furniture purchased and erected. And we had much fun moving our bed around each room to keep ahead of all the work.

A *small fortune later we are almost finished.

We just need our old bed collecting by the council and I can move back and start to re-fill my book cases.

*Large.

When I have managed brief forays into the garden I have focused mostly on a bit of re-editing of under performing plants, plants that I have just tolerated, and plants that really turned out to be rubbish have been removed, this has included several impulse buys and 3 roses amongst other things.

This of course has given me room to move other plants about and maybe make a few better, but informed purchases.

1st attempt at Broad Beans ever.
Variety robin Hood.

 

This time last year, I created a few raised beds on the sunny side of the garden, just plonked on top of the lawn, instead of cutting the turf away, this was a 12 month experiment to see if it was worthwhile, and to see if I could produce any veg worthy of eating.

Well i’m delighted to report I had a bumper crop of all sorts of veg, such as lettuce, turnips, onions, peas……  But my Sweetcorn was abysmal, so was my courgettes due to Powdery Mildew.

 

 

 

I did Achieve some splendid Carrots.

Splendid Carrots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I grew too many Potatoes.

Last of the Potatoes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I had a bumper crop of Tomatoes, Cucumbers and I even had a first Melon, which tasted amazing.

First ever Melon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll certainly be trying these again.

So this coming year, now that I’ve mostly finished working on the house, means that I can again concentrate on the garden, I’m planning on increasing the size and hopefully the productivity of my veg patch.  I’ve already purchased too many seeds of both flowers and veg, and I’m going to explore gardening in pots more as I think its a way to increase the growing areas in the sunniest parts of the garden.

I want to look into the possibility of running a path right up to the top of the garden, as every time we get significant rain, (which almost always now), the lawn in the middle of the garden becomes a bog, and walking across it to my Greenhouse or Compost bin is proving messy.

And finally I was bequeathed a little bit of money earlier in year, and I decided I wanted to spend it on just me, and not on tradesmen’s wages, so I purchased a new 8X6 greenhouse with a few extras, such as more vents.

It was a special offer package from a greenhouse company I’ve used before.  The greenhouse was delivered in late Autumn and I’ve spend what available time I could over Christmas dismantling my old 6X6 greenhouse to make room for the newly purchased one.

I’ve got lots of plans for the coming growing  year, and hopefully, now I’ve got the time to implement them without feeling guilty that house stuff needed seeing to.

 

I just need all this heavy rain to stop.