Veg Patch

To read the story of my Veg/Flower Patch in chronological order use the links in the Blog Archive

Thursday 22 January 2015

The Busy Gardener aka The Lazy Blogger

Hello.. I am still here in case you were wondering. I must apologise for being an absent blogger for quite some months. There is a reason though. When I started this blog I always said I wouldn't write the same things over and over again. A garden though does exactly that, each spring, it comes to life and gives months of pleasure, and then come the winter, it goes back to sleep. I found myself last august with nothing new to write, or so I thought. Life in the garden carried on and I was so busy helping it along and enjoying it, I didn't get around to sharing. 

So its time to catch up. The most obvious piece of news to share is about the hens, Babs, Gerry and Margot. In the early summer all 3 started to look a little under the weather. I tried every potion and cure I could find, but sadly they all succumbed to something, I don't know what. They were happy hens and gave us lot of pleasure and loads and loads of eggs. I decided that I wouldn't have hens again, just because we were finding it difficult to get them minded when we wanted to go away. So it was time to do something with the now empty hen run. 



I decided that with my new love of growing flowers, the space would be better used as a new raised bed, so this time, I splashed out and bought a ready made kit from Harrod Horticultural  . We put the run and all the stuff associated with it, on Freecycle and off it went to a nice family in the New Forest. 

The new bed arrived and I set about building it and planting with biennial plants such as sweet William and Hesperis .






I also planted a couple of hundred various bulbs under the whole bed so it should look wonderful in the spring. 

The summer rolled on and the garden was proceeding wonderful veg and flowers.




 Late summer was probably may favourite because thats when the Sunflowers and dahlias began to look the best. I grew a variety called Mongolian Giant just to see how big it would get. I was delighted with the result.. I am 5ft 4 so judge for yourself how big it actually got. 


They looked even better cut and made into Jam Jar Posies



Altogether it was a wonderful summer and I am hoping for the same again this year. In other news Freda enjoyed her summer immensly, I think the highlight was when our car club was allowed to park the cars on the grass street at Bucklers Hard in the Forest. 


and finally Gibson is doing really welll, we went away for a bit and he stayed with a relative who works for the RNLI . He was lucky enough to go to London and spend the day at Tower Lifeboat station. The crew loved him and made him an honorary lifeboat dog.


In 2015 I shall try and keep you a bit more up to date. 

10 comments:

  1. Sweet Williams do make great cut flowers don't they?

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    1. Hi Sue, yes they do and there are wallflowers and icelandic poppies in their as well along with a couple of hunderd daffs, tulips, gladioli, rannunculus and others I cant remember
      lorraine

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  2. Exchanging a hen-run for a raised bed - good call! Did you line it with pond-liner material or what?

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    1. Hi Mark, I used weed supressing fabric just to try and protect the sides a bit and maybe make them lst a bit longer
      Lorraine

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  3. Interesting that you build a raised bed and then only fill it two-thirds high. I've so far built two using WoodblocX but I fill mine to the brim with soil. Is there a particular reason for leaving the top third empty? (Alternative views always matter). And with a name like "Gibson" that guy should be an honorary RAF dog!

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    1. Hi John
      When I did this it was a few days before I went on a months holiday. the sweet william and other plants needed to be in before I left.I ordered a ton of topsoil and expected it to fill to the top but I was wrong. i plan on topping it up with compost once these flowers are finished and then replant . you are correct about Gibsons Raf cinnection He was named for Commander Guy Gibson who is a bit of a hero to my husband.

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  4. It's very uplifting to see a summer garden when everyone is writing about winter stuff, so your blogging break has worked well. Well done for getting back into it again; I start to question why I bother if I don't write for a few weeks but, six years in, I have to continue now! I'd love to know which flowers you grew for cutting as that's what I've planned this year.

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    1. Hi Caro, I grew all sorts but the mainstays were Sweet peas, calendula, california poppies, asters, zinnias, dahlias and multi headed sunflowers. I tend to buy most of my seeds from ben at Higgledygarden.com they are brilliant with very high germination rates

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  5. Awesome post as always Lorraine thank you for sharing thinking of getting some sweet Williams for the front garden

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  6. Hi Lorraine,

    Great blog! I run a blog and company selling chicken coops. http://www.benedictsfarm.com/

    I couldn't find an email address, so hopefully you mind me commenting here.

    I would love to write a guest blog for your site or be included in your useful links section.

    Please feel free to get me at - dan@benedictsfarm.com. Thanks!!

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