Spring Prep

Had a great time since about mid Feb. Just a few hours a week, clearing, pruning and getting ready for the Spring onslaught. I really love this time of the year as everything seems so under control. Everything absolutely possible with the promise of plans and ideas coming into fruition. I had long wondered what to do in the back of the garden since a variety of sundry pets (dogs in particular - and we have a new one -) have been known to cause a lot of destruction and is the reason behind the fence (look at the autumn garden image in the right sidebar and you'll see what I mean). We also have a horrible time with slugs and snails which decimate yields and, being permaculture minded, do not like using slug pellets. I came across this picture in an old Alan Titchmarsh book and got so inspired, changed entirely the way I viewed the garden. Here it is but it is scanned and the quality not wonderful.

Scanned image not wholly successful
but you can see the semi-wild
look I'm after.

This year, I am going to grow all veg in pots and give the rest over to medicinal and few culinary herbs. I've also decided to frame each bed in a low growing box hedge (blight permitting, though it hasn't reached here yet) since MojoTheDog sees the one I already have as a bit of a barrier.

Tin bath for mint!

Growhouse is full of calendular seeds sown in fibre pots as they don't transplant well and I sent for packets of mint (for a tin bath), wild marjoram, dill, thyme, borage and some wild flowers. Gosh even the names make me smile!

Using the cold growhouse for
hardy perennial herb sowing

Whilst dreaming wild dreams of a summer herb garden, I've also been busy clearing the woodland part of HastyTasty. It used to house a large greenhouse - where the paved bit is - but it was a space I found hard to manage so always wanted to expose this to a different sort of gardening palette. I never really had the time to give it much TLC but hired a friend's friend who took down some large saplings (near trees!) last October and has helped to clear it radically. I cut back a huge buddliea and this weekend spent time raking out the worst of last year's detritus. The plan for this is to manage the brambles so I can get some decent blackberries and to sort out the fruit patch (foreground). Then it will be finding some good groundcover to cut reduce the weed buildup. Here's where I'm at - let's see where it gets us.  Happy Gardening!

Woodland Garden