Bank Holiday in Dorset

The weather this Bank Holiday has been mixed but the combination of sunshine and rain has made the vegetable patch flourish. Yesterday I was thinking how pathetic my climbing french beans looked and then hay presto, this morning they looked positively perky!

On Saturday we went to the Chettle House Craft and Garden Fare. Chettle House is situated in Dorset in the most archetypal Dorset village you could imagine. It's a collection of chocolate box thatched cottages, a tiny village shop with a petrol pump outside and a hotel with a resturant. A sign on a post states to beware of free range children running round. What a lovely sentiment!


This Craft and Garden Fare is packed full of plant stands in the grounds of the beautiful 18th century house. It is held every Whitsun bank holiday and I would recommend anyone who loves plants and garden paraphernalia and lives in Dorset, to pay it a visit.
There were so many plants which I wanted to buy but as I don't have any beds yet I just looked longingly. There were a few stalls with Bearded Irisis on them. A plant which I want in my garden, after seeing them in Monets' garden in France. I didnt want to come away empty handed, so I purchased a scented geranium to put in a wall planter. This variety is called Atar of Rose and when you rub the leaves your fingers smell of geranium essential oil which has calming and relaxing properties.

Ok, I'm off to end my bank holiday with a relaxing rub!!

The Greatest Flower Show On Earth

This week I have been transfixed by the RHS Chelsea Flower Show on the BBC. Arguably the worlds premier flower show. Although I do have a soft spot for the RHS show at Hampton Court, where you can purchase the plants you see and where there is a lot more room to wander and get close to the show gardens. As much as I love Chelsea, it is a place to be seen (if that kind of thing matters to you) and a place where 'one will have a gardener to do that sort of thing' kind of person, is seen loitering around the Pimms tent. That said, you cannot get away from the fact that as a gardener the sight of all those blooms takes your breath away.

I am still digesting the show gardens but one of my most favourites so far is the Daylesford Organic Summer Solstice garden. It has a wheat meadow with wild flowers and native trees with a traditionally layed hedge, edging the kitchen garden or garden kitchen as they have called it. The garden kitchen has hurdles marking out the beds, full or organic herbs and vegetables. At the end of the garden is an oak building for preparing the vegetables after picking.

To check out the video for this garden, go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/chelsea/show_gardens/solstice.shtml It really is one of the most beautiful vegetable gardens I have ever seen.

My garden is chugging along nicely. I need to earth up my potatoes at the weekend and tie in the sweet peas. Those pesky slugs are wanting to nibble my dahlias, so I have applied some organic slug pellets to the soil. I also have my first strawberries making an appearance, which is very exciting.

Until then I will continue to watch the rest of Chelsea flower show and marvel at how beautiful nature is.

Reading and Maintance

This weekend has been one of maintance in the garden. Apart from cutting the grass, sweeping and tidying and potting on my butternut squash that has been it. (Still took the best part of Saturday)

I did purchase a fab book for garden inspiration though. It's full of ideas for making your garden an outdoor space you can use. There are no vegetable plots in this book, so I am using the ideas in this book for the part of the garden which is next to the house. I want it to have quite a designed feel and then gradually getting more rustic as it reaches the bottom where my vegetable plot sits.

That is a little way off in the future but for now I shall enjoy reading the book and designing my garden.

Barefoot Gardening

In honour of National Naked Gardening day, I took my gardening shoes off and stood on the wet grass. Thats about as far as my naked gardening goes. We are over looked on one side of the garden, so I don't want to frighten the neighbours plus can you imagine if you are not concentrating when you are trimming the bushes, ooh it doesn't bear thinking about!

On Saturday I went to Haskins garden centre to meet my sister and neice for tea and cake and also a look around at the plants.

My sister Sarah and her daughter Hannah had to go straight after the tea, so I had a leisurely wander around the garden centre, looking at all the paraphanalia, that has nothing to do with gardening (what's that all about?) and also the books and plants. I bought some slug pellets which are certified for organic use (recommended by Monty) and some twine. Not very exciting but neccessary. I am not ready for plants yet but nothing beats nosing about the blooms.

I have also been busy in my vegetable garden. I have planted a row of Pink Fir Apple potatoes. Unfortunately just one row because I just don't have the room. I made a wig wam for my climbing french beans. I planted four beans per stake, with the intention of removing the weaker two seedlings per stake.

I sowed sweetcorn in blocks, a variety called Supersweet, which helps pollination and in between the sweetcorn I sowed carrots. This variety is called Fly Away and is supposed to be resistant against the dreaded carrot root fly. Lastly I sowed some lettuce, which is cut and come again. I have just sowed one row and will sow the lettuce in succession, throughout the summer.

As with all vegetables but especially sweetcorn, once vegetables are picked, they loose their sugars very quickly, so you are best to pick and take them straight to the pot. What better excuse do you need to grow your own!

My last vegetable task was planting up my tomatoes in the half baskets. I added some water retaining granules to the compost, which reduces watering by four times.

After all this work, I got out my wicker chair from the summerhouse and sat down with my camera. Instead for walking around the garden with my camera, I took photographs from where I sat. Its amazing what you can see, if you just concentrate on a restricted area.

This Is Hardcore

What an industrious weekend. I can't believe how lovely the weather was yesterday, as I sit looking out at the grey skies and drizzle.

I started after my chiropractor appointment on Friday evening. I thought if I just got stuck in, that I wouldn't feel the pain in my arm. I cut the grass at the back of my garden for the first time this year. Its a very large space on a couple of levels. It really doesn't know what it wants to do and I don't know what to do with it either. It faces south so gets lots of sun and would be ideal for some kind of sun terrace. I need some inspiration before I decide.

On Saturday I planted my Charlotte potatoes. My Pink Fir Apple potatoes haven't chitted enough, so I am going to keep them back another week. I sowed some Basil, Tomatoes. Chillies (free with Gardeners World magazine) and Butternut Squash seeds.

The biggest job of the weekend was the hard landscaping. I had a garden path, which dipped in the middle, so that had to come up. We hired a jack hammer to get the concrete path up and to remove a wall. We had hoped that the concrete path we had removed, could be used for the hardcore for the path but it was too chunky, so we had to pay a visit to B & Q and buy 20 bags of sub base, which was so heavy to push in the trolley, it took the two of us to push with all our might. We also hired a whacker plate to tamp everything down, ready for a dressing of gravel. There was also a wobbly arch across the path, which we pulled down, which has really opened up the garden.

We are going to have to get a skip to remove the rubble which is left but I have lots of other jobs in the pipeline, like to remove the grass which the hardcore is sitting on to make way for some plants and also the front garden needs a makeover so I'll hang on until I am ready to do those jobs and hopefully by then my arm will be of better use to me.

Warm Enough For Sweet Peas

With the sun warming the back of my neck, I planted two of my favourite flowers. Sweet Peas and Dahlias.

You cannot beat the sweet scent of Sweet Peas and I have planted two metal wigwams with a mixture of colours. The Dahlia tubers are buried in the ground now that the chance of a hard frost is over. I have chosen really dark purple varieties for cutting and putting in vases indoors. The buds don't open in water, so you need to wait until they are open on the stem before cutting

The garlic is doing well and the onions are starting to grow.

I am desperate to put my potatoes in but they are not chitting well. I have moved them from the summer house and indoors where it is warmer, so hopefully that might spur them on, so that I can plant them this weekend.

My rasperberry canes are putting on leaf which is very exciting. I wanted to edge the border to stop the grass encroaching and to make it look attractive. I love the look of the French poterge. I think the look of a mixture of vegtable and flowers is very romantic and why not make the vegetable garden pretty as well?

I have lots of bricks dotted about the garden, so we made a brick edging for the raspberry bed which looks lovely and we are recycling materials found in the garden, which is good for the environment too.

Out of Action

This is my second consecutive weekend without any gardening. I am visiting the Chiropractor at the moment and have been told to rest my arm and back. There are plenty of jobs to be getting on with in the garden and if it wasn't for the rain today, I might have been naughty and just done them, although my boyfriend has been keeping an eye on me, making sure I don't use my arm and shouting at me when I do.

So I decided instead to visit a garden centre. Two in fact. I had received a leaflet from our local Wyevale, in which I spotted a compost bin. We have a garden waste bin from the council but as I have so many vegetable peelings, which you can't put in the council compost bin, I thought I would get one. We then went to Stewarts garden centre. I purchased some tomato plants, Tumbler and Tumbling Joe, to put in two lovely wire wall baskets, my sister-in-law Mary gave me. I also purchased Gardeners World magazine, which contained 4 packets of free seeds, tomatoes, chillies, lettuce and basil. I use all of these in abundance, so I need to get cracking and plant them up, one handed!