Measuring and mince pies!

A definite winter chill in the air today! Temperature in our back garden was about 7 degrees at its highest. We braved the cold however, to give the garden a thorough measuring (using my new surveying skills learnt in my first term at college..!) Now we can get on with making more concrete plans for the prospective veggie patch. We'd love to fit 4x 1m square raised beds in so that we can have a go at the 4-bed rotation. Further planning details to follow in the next few days! The plan is to have a good idea of what size the beds will be and a drafted plan of potential veggies to grow etc before we head to the peaceful countryside for the festive period.

I also got around to making my first ever batch of mince pies this afternoon! (With suitably cheesy Christmas music in the background!) A pretty good success (even if I do say so myself!) I have a second batch of 12 to make up early in the week to take with us at Christmas for all to enjoy!

Et voila! Festive mince pies!

An attempt at container-grown garlic...

It is still unbelievably mild for the time of year - high of 12 degrees today and felt even milder than that outside. It is getting dark around 3.30 in the afternoon these days though. At least we have some indication that we are in winter!

It is turning into a rather christmassy day really, this morning trooping to the local post office with a stack of parcels in an attempt to get those final presents out in time for the big day. Later today will see my first bash at making a batch of mince pies (something I have never had a go at before) with a jar of the homemade mincemeat given to us by Milly last weekend.

Back to the garden though, another mammoth raking of fallen leaves done today. Our leaf mould container is well over half full now.

Also planted 14 cloves of 'Thermidrome', an early winter variety of garlic, into two containers of well-gritted soil as it seems garlic likes a free-draining soil. I hope they will be happy in their winter home. Slightly concerned about lack of direct sunlight in the back garden at this time of year. The front of the house gets a fair bit though so I guess the pots could be brought out to the front in the day. Hmmm, maybe a little more background reading is needed...

The Big Fence Project in Pictures - Sept/Oct 2006

When we moved in...

The fence was almost falling over and being dragged down by an old, unloved honeysuckle (31/07/06)

The side stretch of garden was overgrown and we had to duck under the elder branches (31/07/06)

... and then work began...

The old fence comes down and there is wood and tools everywhere! (17/09/06)

The old posts concreted in had to be dug out with a pickaxe and lots of muscle power! (21/09/06)

The boys put their backs into the digging out the old posts (23/09/06)

The new fence posts and panels go up (24/09/06)

Staining the panels to weatherproof them (which took forever!) and the final panel is torn down (15/10/06)

The general mess! There was so much old fence wood, concrete and soil taken up (15/10/06)

The finished product - this is how the garden is looking today with a new sturdy fence (14/12/06)

Building and composting: Garden Progress Aug-Dec 06

There has been some considerable progress between moving in this summer up to now (well, we think so anyway...)

We have managed to completely replace a large section of dilapidated fencing including having to remove a sad, old and overgrown honeysuckle, a rampant elder and a couple of stringy and unloved climbers. The fence building was a pretty huge learning curve with added difficulties such as discovering that our neighbour's garden is a foot higher than ours, which needed to be restrained from completely sliding into our garden...

We now have a proper compost bin. This arrived a good few weeks ago and we are loving being able to put all our veggie peelings and other compostables in there rather than out with the rubbish. Something that we could not do in our previous flat. A bottle of organic compost activator has been purchased as our garden doesn't get enough sun in the colder months to heat up the bin enough. I hadn't realised that there is a certain skill involved in composting. Putting in the right quantity of layers etc. So far we have deterred too many flies with a layer of shredded and scrunched newspaper.

Most recently, the weekend before last saw the construction of a container for creating leaf mould, thanks to advice from the Gardeners' World website, as the beautiful mature wisteria trained over our kitchen door and a huge viburnum are now finally shedding their leaves (such an unusually mild autumn this year.)

Focus for the new year can now be turned to the business of transforming the muddy, patchy lawn into fertile soil in raised beds ready for sowing in the spring! (Fingers crossed we get it right...)

Our leaf mould container a la Gardeners' World (2nd December 2006)

In the beginning...

I didn't have a back garden when I was growing up so my first gardening experiences came from the tiny roof terrace of our previous rented flat, which was a converted attic right in the eaves of a house in south-east London. West-facing with fantastic sunsets in the summer, looking back it was no wonder I quickly developed a passion for gardening. It was a little private oasis in the middle of noisy London and I loved it.

Our first spring there I think saw the first attempt at germinating seeds in a seed tray on a windowsill indoors. Tomatoes and peppers. The following years, the veggie growing literally grew and last summer our little roof terrace was jam-packed with container-grown tomatoes, herbs, lettuce, carrots and french beans. The difference in flavour when you pick a tomato fresh from the plant and eat it was unbelievable!

We lived there for two and a half years and when we moved, it took a whole transit van to transport all the plants... Not to mention having to carry them all down 4 flights of stairs!

This summer we bought our first flat, also in south-east London, and top of the must-have list when we were househunting was a garden. Its pretty small, and typically victorian with a narrow stretch along one side of the house about a metre or so wide, with a larger area of about 7m x 5m at the back. The back has a raised lawn area which, now that we are in the colder, wetter months is muddy and uninviting. It is a decent size for a mini-allotment style veggie garden and we both love growing fresh organic food... so, you get the picture. First challenge is that there is a fair amount of preparation and planning needed to get it going... so watch this space!

Pic 1 The roof terrace (May 2006)

Pic 2 The first big harvest (Summer 2005)

Pic 3 The new garden! (August 2006)