I don’t think that I was ever really convinced that the orchard would be our last project and nor will regular readers who are now familiar with the Head Gardeners modus operandus. So when the new project was announced at Christmas I didn’t know whether to have hysterics or give him a big hug, particularly
At last salad rationing has come to an end and there are rewards for hard labour. Each spring is different, but by the end of May we have stopped anticipating and started eating! The first new potatoes with fresh mint, slim, sweet carrots with feathery chervil, finger courgettes and baby fennel with a drizzle of
Last month the seeds were jiggling to be let out of their packets into the warmth of the propagator. There they lazed in the tropical heat and only germinated when threaten with a blast of cold night air. This was followed by an unseemly rush to relocate from the minimalist cells of the plug trays
Somewhere along the line the botanical purist meets the gardening hedonist and the ambivalent fundamentalist emerges. In the garden there is not too much of a conflict of interest as I am quite content to grow pure species, subspecies, hybrids, geographical and horticultural varieties, plants of doubtful parentage or even clones. The growing conditions in
What a difference a year makes I had planned to write about the cottage garden to accompany the description of the vegetable garden in June when my muse prodded me in the ribs (does anyone else have a grumpy, bossy muse?) and suggested that I might look at the photographs of the garden for May