30 Days Wild: Day 27 - Edible Garden

A beautiful sunny day and I've been stuck indoors all day coughing and croaking like an old woman.  What voice I have sounds rather like Bonnie Tyler the morning after a night of karaoke and inadvisable heavy smoking.

Still determined not to miss a day I dragged myself into the garden to discover how the fruit was doing.  We inherited all the fruit trees from the previous owner and we have something to keep us going throughout most of the year.

In addition to all the ones in the photos we also get blackberries and wild garlic, both of which are technically weeds but both still wind up in the kitchen.  We've also supposedly got a damson tree, though I've never seen a damson on it so I'm not convinced. 

Gooseberries

Almost Redcurrants

Wild Strawberry

Soon to be blackcurrants

Apples coming along nicely

Figs - managed to eat 2 last year

Rhubarb ready for crumbles

Pansy - can you really eat these?

30 Days Wild: Day 21 - My messy wildlife garden

I'm possibly not the world's worst gardener but I'm sure I could give whoever it is a run for their money.  I like my garden, it just never makes it all that high up on my "to do" list and pruning generally gets done when pathways are blocked and weeds are tapping on the front door.

I've also never mastered the art of the "green wheelie bin" and tend to dump the garden rubbish in a few small (OK one of them is pretty large) piles at the bottom of the garden.  This always used to worry me, but no more, for it turns out us lazy gardeners are more eco friendly - I know, Chris Packham told me so on Springwatch. 

Today was one of the days that I made it out into the wilderness to clear a few paths and hoik out a few weeds so I thought I'd share some of the top "wildlife" spots in my garden with the world (and if my lovely green fingered mother-in-law happens to be reading this, sorry mum - I do my best, honest I do...)

The wood & leaves lure the insects and the insects lure the birds.

Another "back to nature" woodpile

Known as "dingle dell" - there's a spring here afer heavy rain

Compost pile behind prolific blackcurrant bush

But the bees love it!

Honest they do!

See? I told you!

Random purple flowers (I told you I was no gardener!) :-)

Nom nom nom!

No idea what it is but it's lovely!

Go Go Gadget Gardener!

Technically a weed I suppose but...

I've been looking back over a few blogs this morning and realised I've not done a general round up on the whole "new life" thing for a while, which is a good thing really as it means I've been too busy either working, having fun or, usually, both.  Both writing and training are keeping me busy and, more importantly, keeping my bank manager happy.

As spring has finally sprung the garden has been demanding my attention.  You may remember a year or so ago I was having a minor rant about Peter Mayle and the idyllic life he portrayed in his books, well 12 months on and with more time to keep an eye on it, the garden is gradually beginning to behave itself.  We've added a number of plants to try and bring a little colour to the place (lots of evergreens and not many flowers before), and have tamed the ones we inherited.

We've also installed a vegetable plot which was hard work to create but is now all planted with us eagerly awaiting our first crop of home grown goodies.  I spent most of yesterday attacking the weeds in the garden and decided that gardening would become a whole lot easier if gardeners could undergo a "Six Million Dollar Man" (or woman) makeover.  Please feel free to add your own, but my ideas so far are:

Wannabe blackcurrants.

• Telescopic arms - to allow you to prune high bushes/ trees without the need to balance precariously on the step ladders whilst wielding a very sharp implement.
• Gadget hands which, at the push of a button, could switch between trowel, secateurs, fork etc.
• The ability to hover thus allowing you to reach that annoying weed at the back without trampling the newly forked soil. (OK, the telescopic arms would allow this too, but hovering would be WAY more fun!)
• A rubber back, so you could spend the day working in the garden without having to spend the evening engulfed in the smell of Deep Heat.
• A garment that has a waterproof back but is non waterproof elsewhere.  This would allow you to remain outside during light showers without having a cold soggy back for the rest of the day. It would also come in handy when working under bushes after the aforementioned rain shower.
• An invisible soundproof bubble; not to shut the outside world out (though that would have its advantages) but to protect the outside world from my inane chatter as I tell the weeds off, chat to the plants and converse with the birds.
• Foam knees that feel no pain.  How can one tiny stone hurt so much?
• Gyroscopic balance; particularly useful for rockeries.
• "Weed vision" which will allow me to instantly differentiate between weeds and "oh, maybe that's where I planed those poppies"
• A telekinetic ability to transport my bucket of weeds to the compost heap without me having to move from my finely balance spot.

With the exception of "sapling watch" (we are overrun with ash & sycamore seedlings) I shall now be taking a few days off from the hard chores to allow my back to recover.  All I need now is a spot of hot weather so I can enjoy a G&T on the patio... (And you thought my wish for telescopic arms was far fetched!)

The heathers have been particularly pretty this year.

Have always loved my Pieris.

A "Rockery" or a "Bouldery"?

Apple blossom - a magnet for birds.

Ferns.  We have no shortage of ferns.

Think is is a bluebell before it chimes.

Ornamental quince. Lots of quince jelly this year!

Wild Garlic. Less of a weed and more of a salad ingredient.

My favourite garden visitor.

Peter Mayle has a lot to answer for.

Two days ago there was no path

Some of you probably know who Peter Mayle is but are wondering why I have it in for him, others perhaps don't know who he is and are curious as to what he's done to me.  For the record Peter Mayle wrote "A Year in Provence", one of the first "new life abroad books" and from him came dozens of others; "Driving over Lemons" (Chris Stewart) and "Extra Virgin" (Annie Hawes) to name but two.  Like thousands of other people I read those books and longed for the chance to live such a dream myself; and then we moved to the Lake District and I got my chance and that's when I learned it's not quite the same as they tell you in the books.

Trust me, this is the "after" shot.

We've been here just short of 18 months now and, if this were one of those books we'd have tamed the wilderness that is the garden, gotten ourselves a goat or two, harvested our first crop of olives/ tomatoes/ other home grown produce and be spending our evenings sitting around on the patio enjoying home grown meals with our neighbours, supplemented by local wine and freshly baked bread, whilst swapping amusing anecdotes about our experiences with the local tradespeople.

So what's the reality and how is it so different?  Well for a start I wouldn't exactly describe the garden as "tamed" just yet.  Where Peter, Annie et al seemed to have endless days at their disposal for creating their corner of pardise, I'm having to fit it in around 1 and 1/2 jobs and alongside my attempts at breaking into freelance writing.  They clearly had some sort of steady but undisclosed financial income to support their new lives; we had to sell our CD collection for our monthly shop. (I'm not complaining, just saying.  Well, actually I'm making excuses for not having done the garden properly yet.)

My favourite little nook.  Site of a spring in
wet weather (see Steve's pics below.)

Anyway, back to the garden.  We bought this place as it had the largest garden we could afford because we like a little space around us; but you know what they say, "with great gardens come great responsibility".  We'd been told that it was a "low maintenance" garden but I don't believe such a thing really exists; with each season comes a new challenge.  At the moment I'm battling sycamore saplings which pop up at an astounding rate accompanied by a rich assortment of weeds.  It doesn't help that I'm horticulturally inept,  When I visit the local garden centre in search of weedkiller and they ask what sort of weeds I have, the best I can come up with is "red ones, you know, the ones with the small green leaves..." Their pitying look says it all.  I've actually come up with  few rules for weeds which would help me enormously.

1. Weeds should be ugly and easily discernible from flowers.  We are the proud owners of some very pretty weeds, but they all have to come out apparently.

2.  Only one weed at a time per garden.  Along with our blue weeds and red weeds we also have bindweed and sticky weed and I only have one pair of hands.

Just need to train them to only eat the weeds.

3.  Weeds should grow at a discrete distance from all other flora.  Embedding themselves in amongst "proper" plants is not playing fair, neither is wrapping themselves around them.  You hear me bindweed?

To help reduce the amount of weeding I need to do I've reclassified some borderline weeds.  For example Wild Garlic and Wild Strawberries are allowed to grow along my paths so long as they don't mind sacrificing themselves for the odd meal or two.  I've also decided that the tall grass with the interesting stem is an "Ornamental Grass" and thus can remain, at least for now.

Our very own spring; well, occasionally.

On the bright side we have managed to grow some of our own produce.  Last year we produced an inedible crop of runner beans and a crop of peas which, although very tasty, could barely be eeked out to half a portion. We also inherited 4 prolific apple trees which quickly exhausted my supply of apple recipes, so this year we'll be making cider, lots of cider.  Who knows, maybe this time next year we'll have caught up with the Mayles/ Stewarts/ Hawes of this world and will be enjoying dinner in the garden with our neighbours or, more likely, we'll all be indoors getting roaring drunk on cider whilst the rain pours down and the weeds run riot unchecked.  Perhaps not quite so inspiring to write about, but nevertheless idyllic in its own way.