June 2nd, 2007

First blog about the garden.... Hubby and I may have a very small garden, but it is bursting forth with life.... We love to garden!!!And it is always and ever changing from season to season, day to day.... So first off is some photos of our little patch of land we call a garden....

the garden

If you click on the photo of the happy gardener it will take you to our magical garden....

As I said in my profile I come from America where land is in plentiful supply. Since moving here I have found that it is small and very precious. So I along with my Hubby try to pack as much as we can into our garden. He tends to do the hard work and also tends the flowers. I on the other hand try to grow food....... and do the managing bit. That pot doesn't look good there so it needs moving... that sort of thing. Most times we seem to work well together, but we do have our occasional spats. He likes to prune and I don't. LOL I am more of a natural gardener. If the plant wants to grow that way, let it. And if that plant decides it likes it better there then fine..

Well so far this year, hubby has given in to me and let me take over the etage(I think that is what it is called) to grow some of my lettuces. The only reason I wanted to put them there is the slugs and snails seem to enjoy them too. And with them being here they have a tougher time finding them being up off the ground. We don't like using pesticides or chemicals in our garden if we can help it. So my way of getting rid of the slugs and snails is to bin them. I go around and collect them up and put them in the bin to be collected with the garbage. I feel it is a sort of human way to deal with them. Chucking them over the neighbors fence doesn't work, they just find their way back and sometimes bring their new found friends with them.

My courgettes(actually I call them Zucchinis). I love this veg and it is soooo expensive at the supermarkets. I remember throwing them away in the US, cause I couldn't keep up with them. Next to Onions and tomatoes I think this is probably one of my favourite veggies. You can do so many different things with it. If they do well watch the food blog and I will post some recipes for you to try. My food blog


Next comes my beans and lettuce... Well, for the past few years I have tried to grow beans. I still have the fond memory of picking and canning green beans back in the US. I would pick them and clean one day and then can the next. I would can enough that we didn't have to buy any beans the whole year. It would be bushels and bushels of them. Here I am really lucky if I get a few beans for a meal. I really don't know what I am doing wrong or not doing. I have moved them from spot to spot around the garden. The best we ever had was behind the shed. But we kept forgetting to water them there. And it was a bit of a tight squeeze getting behind there. So again I have chosen a new spot in the garden to try growing them in.... I will keep you posted..

And lastly for this post, our apple tree!!!! I convinced Brian of planting an apple tree. The next door neighbors have two trees and they are just on the other side of the fence. So I thought great they can cross pollinate each other. And so far touching wood, the tree seems to be growing!!! I know it will be a few years before any apples show up. But hey, if I get some in a few years I will be one very happy bunny!!!!